Patrick Hall: My constituents welcome the commitment to rail demonstrated by the Minister and his colleagues, as delivered by First Capital Connect and advocated by Bedford communities association, which welcomes the start of the Thameslink project, with developments such as the one at Luton Airport Parkway station. It welcomes the promised extra trains that will be delivered—

Mr. Speaker: That is understandable, but a supplementary question must be brief, and this is a little speech. Perhaps the Minister can answer the hon. Gentleman.

John Butterfill: As the Minister is considering construction works in south London, can he confirm that he knew that the five international platforms at Waterloo station were due to be released at least five years ago—

Martin Linton: Does my hon. Friend agree that the disruption caused to south London suburban services by the Thameslink construction programme can be avoided only if phase 2 of the East London line is built first, freeing up badly needed platform space at London Bridge? Will he meet me and other south London MPs to consider a proposition that would be in everybody's interests?

Tom Harris: Just for clarification, I should explain that my first ministerial decision on taking office was to rename Thameslink 2000 as Thameslink. The hon. Gentleman is perhaps getting confused between consultation on two different issues. The consultation currently under way is the one on Network Rail's route utilisation strategy. However, Thameslink is now being built. It is going ahead and will be fully funded in the next control period between 2009 and 2014.

Ruth Kelly: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. It sometimes seems to me that the Conservative party is torn irrevocably in two different directions, and cannot choose between the two. He is right to point to policies such as the renewable transport fuels obligation, which, I can inform the House, makes up nearly a quarter of the CO2 savings in the Government's climate change objectives. I am clear about the scope to go further, and that is why the Department recently published a response to Eddington and Stern, which sets out the progress that I hope we can make.

Greg Knight: But will the Secretary of State get a bit radical? Does she realise that unnecessary omissions are caused when a vehicle has to stop unnecessarily? Why does she not trial some of the schemes in force in the United States of America, where vehicles are allowed to turn on a red signal—over here, we would allow a left turn—and consider other schemes whereby during non-rush hour periods, traffic lights do not go to red unnecessarily but flash amber in all directions?

Khalid Mahmood: I thank my right hon. Friend for that, but will she ensure that when local authorities and local bus service providers such as Centro in Birmingham make rescheduling announcements, pensioners in those areas who rely on those services do not find them drastically cut at the stroke of a pen, and that clear consultation is put in place instead?

Rosie Winterton: I had a meeting with some of the coach operators and smaller bus companies in which we discussed that issue. One of the problems is that when the legislation was going through, representations were not made and evidence was not forthcoming about some of the potential problems down the road. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick) has also taken an interest in the matter. We have to bear in mind that there is a safety issue, too, which is about carrying passengers, sometimes on quite long routes. We have to achieve a balance between ensuring that safety is properly covered and the need of operators to run those routes.

Rosie Winterton: Perhaps it would be helpful if I explained the process that we would expect any approvals board to go through. We would want local authorities to carry out a consultation and put forward a properly costed proposal on how they wanted to put together a quality contract. It would then be for the approvals board to ensure that those costings were correct, that the consultation had been carried out and that the scheme was going to work. That will provide local authorities with greater certainty that they will not be judicially reviewed, and operators with the knowledge that the scheme has been properly considered before it goes ahead.

Rosie Winterton: I certainly hope that we can ensure that the concessionary fares scheme works smoothly. I have to say that it has been greatly welcomed among elderly people and people with disabilities. It will operate at a cost of something like £1 billion a year. It is running now at the local level and it will be extended to the national level from April. Of course we want to see the scheme operating properly across the borders.

Rosie Winterton: I know that my hon. Friend has been extremely concerned about this matter. He raised it in an Adjournment debate last week, to which the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town, replied. I met the owner of Stagecoach recently and, having heard the representations of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick), I made clear my concerns about the situation. I do not know whether he is aware that the traffic commissioner has taken a strong interest in this issue and has taken the decision to convene a public inquiry into Stagecoach's behaviour, which will start within the next two weeks. I will certainly keep in touch with my hon. Friend about this matter, and I would, of course, like to visit his constituency. It is also important to ensure that Lancashire county council, as the transport authority, is involved, in order to try to resolve what is clearly a very difficult situation.

Tom Harris: Reopening regional or rural lines will not normally be the most effective way of delivering the capacity increases which, as the rail White Paper explained, are our priority. I nevertheless remain willing to consider any reopening proposal that is supported by a proper business case and can be funded privately.

Julie Kirkbride: But as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) has pointed out, the Government's concessionary scheme does have some malign consequences. In Bromsgrove, for example, the local council has offered free parking to disabled and pensioner citizens, but that has now been put in jeopardy by the cost of the new national concessionary scheme. What do the Government think is better: local determination of transport priorities or their own national schemes?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) is a newer Member of the House, but when a question is put he should remain within the Chamber at least until we get to the next one. He is not the only offender—I have had to pull up a few over the years.

Concessionary Bus Travel

Rosie Winterton: I shall explain how we see the composition of an approvals board. It will include the traffic commissioner, a transport expert from the area and a transport economist. The idea is that the approvals board will ensure that the local authority has gone through the proper process of consultation, but in addition the approvals board process will ensure that the scheme would work in practice, that the economics add up and that it is a viable service for the local area. It is about providing more certainty for local authorities that their decisions will not be judicially reviewed—although that cannot always be guaranteed—and for operators that a new scheme has been subject to independent scrutiny and is likely to operate efficiently.

Jim Fitzpatrick: The Christmas drink-drive campaign was launched last week to continue to ram home the message that drinking and driving do not mix. The whole House will agree that, over the last 30 years, drinking and driving has become socially unacceptable. However, as my hon. Friend points out, there are still too many people dying as a result of alcohol-related crashes—some 540 last year. The police will breathalyse twice as many people this month compared with any other month. We are spending £1.6 million on the Christmas campaign. We had a special campaign in the summer, on which we spent £3 million, that focused on young male drivers in particular. We will do everything that we can to get the message across that people ought not to drink and drive, particularly at Christmas. I am grateful to him for raising that question.

John Randall: Can the Secretary of State of confirm that she is aware that a third runway at Heathrow will require the biggest removal of people in this country in modern times, and that the community of Sipson will be wiped off the map? Whereabouts in her consultation paper does it suggest where those who are forcibly removed are going to live?

Ann McKechin: . Does the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), share my concerns about recent media reports that certain charter airlines are flying longer distances than is necessary on some routes to avoid more expensive airspace? Does that not have a badly effect on our need to cut carbon emissions? Does the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), share my concerns about recent media reports that certain charter airlines are flying longer distances than is necessary on some routes to avoid more expensive airspace? Does that not have a bad effect on our need to cut carbon emissions?

Gerald Howarth: I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and for the briefing earlier today.
	This is a grim day. I echo the Secretary of State in conveying the profound condolences of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and all Conservative Members to the families of those who lost their lives in this tragic incident, and in paying tribute to the immense courage and professionalism of the crew of Nimrod X-ray Victor 230, who gave their lives in the service of our country. Their role, and that of their fellow Nimrod crews, continues to be vital for military operations.
	The tragedy should bring home to the nation the very real sacrifices being made on its behalf by the men and women of our armed forces, not least in the Royal Air Force, whose fixed-wing and helicopter crews are constantly exposed to danger on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. I also thank the board of inquiry for completing an extremely thorough job in very demanding circumstances. Although it is clear that the board has been unable to establish definitively the cause of the crash, its analysis would seem to be as accurate as it is possible to be.
	Two key issues arise. First, although the age of the aircraft itself may have been ruled out as an issue, the systems failures are clearly a factor of age and maintenance. With an average 40 fire-related incidents a year for the past 20 years and 52 fuel leaks in a six-month period last year, both the Royal Air Force and the manufacturer were acutely aware of the potential hazards arising from the Nimrod's ageing systems. Secondly, the aircraft should have been replaced by the MRA4 four years ago. It is nothing short of a scandal that the new aircraft will not enter service for at least another four years.
	As the Secretary of State confirmed, the report is detailed. Many detailed technical questions arise, but I shall confine myself to just six. First, why was the recommendation, made by BAE Systems in 2004, to install a hot air leak warning in the location of the hot air ducting rejected following an earlier incident involving another Nimrod? Secondly, is it true that the investigation carried out last year by QinetiQ found that repair teams were using out-of-date manuals and equipment, and that there was
	"considerable loss of expertise and experience as trade specialists have left the team"?
	If so, is not that an example of the dangerous run-down in Royal Air Force numbers, which are now 1,500 below strength?
	Thirdly, since the hot air pipe running past the No. 7 fuel tank was effectively redundant because the requirement for an on-board systems cooling had reduced, why was not it removed or rendered inoperable before now?
	Fourthly, the board finds that the fuel and hot air systems maintenance policy was a contributory factor to the loss of the aircraft. Why has guidance on ageing aircraft systems, which was recommended in 2006, not been issued?
	Fifthly, if all air-to-air refuelling involving Nimrod aircraft is suspended, does not that seriously inhibit the aircraft's ability to carry out its vital role in Afghanistan?
	Sixthly, how does the Secretary of State intend to manage with the elderly fleet for the next four years, as fuel leaks continue to increase?
	Is not it the case that the tragic incident reveals the underlying truth: our armed forces are operating at a tempo well in excess of that for which they are resourced? I hope that the Secretary of State can dismiss as wholly untrue today's press reports that the Prime Minister is looking for a further £15 billion of cuts to the defence budget.
	Today, every serviceman and woman, together with their families, will look to the Secretary of State, in exercising his duty of care towards them, to stand up for them and demand that they have the resources to do the job.

Des Browne: First, may I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has an appreciation from his own service of the challenges that the Royal Air Force faces and the risks that are associated with the job that it does? His words will be welcomed by the RAF and especially by the families and communities that support it. They are appropriate words to recognise the scale and nature of the sacrifice that people are prepared to make and the challenges that they are prepared to face. I thank him for them.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the age of Nimrod, which, as he knows from the detailed briefing that he received, the board of inquiry raises and believes to be, in a limited respect, a contributory factor. The key issue, as I am sure he knows, about an aircraft is whether it is fit to fly. The board of inquiry confirmed that the Nimrod has a very good safety record overall. That is incontrovertible. As I said, the board of inquiry identified age as a contributory factor, but we need to consider that in the context of the whole report. It identified two components, whose condition may have been affected by age. Since the incident, the important thing is that we have removed the hazard by turning off the source of ignition, without which a fire is not possible.
	I did not recognise the circumstances that informed the hon. Gentleman's first question, but that may be a failing on my part. As with several questions that he poses, I am sure that he accepts that it falls squarely in the remit of the review that I have announced today. Those questions are entitled to an answer. They cannot be answered by the BOI and should be answered by a process of independent investigation, and I have therefore set up the review. The questions will be passed on directly to the principal reviewer when he is appointed. Indeed, any other questions that Opposition Front Benchers identify as needing to be asked should be fed into the process in due course.
	In dealing with the comprehensive questions that the hon. Gentleman posed, let me deny that there is any truth in the story in the media this morning to which he referred. There is no truth in it.
	On the basis of the BOI report and its conclusions, the three matters that one could have identified as contributory factors as a consequence of resources were considered and specifically said not to be contributory factors to the accident. They were: maintenance—not the system or policy of maintenance, but maintenance itself; servicing the aircraft and operational pressures, about which the hon. Gentleman made, with all due respect to him, inappropriate observations. Those matters were all considered by the BOI, in an entirely independent fashion, not to have been contributory factors in the accident.
	Finally, the hon. Gentleman raises the issue of operational effectiveness in the absence of air-to-air refuelling. That will of course restrict the amount of time for which the Nimrod can fly, but it can fly for nine hours without such refuelling. As he knows, other ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance—resources are being deployed to the operational theatre that could be used to gain the information that operations require.

Willie Rennie: I wish to express my condolences and sympathy to the family and friends of the fallen servicemen. The 14 men deserve our utmost gratitude and admiration for their service to the country.
	I commend the Secretary of State for the way in which he delivered the statement: he always gets these situations right and strikes the appropriate tone.
	I welcome the statement and the board of inquiry report, which is comprehensive and detailed. However, 14 months is far too long to wait, especially given that there is to be a further inquiry into this incident. That has not been fair on the families, who wanted earlier answers. Can the Secretary of State assure us that such delays will not be repeated in future?
	Why were the warning signs—the significant increase in coupling and seal leaks in recent years, the blow-off fuel from tank No. 1 draping the side of the aircraft in previous sorties, and the gaps in insulation of the hot air piping—not heeded? Is not that a failure of the process rather than individual judgments?
	I welcome the Secretary of State's announcement of a review, which should help to provide some of the answers that the board of inquiry was unable to provide. Fundamentally, however, why are we still relying on an aircraft design that is almost 40 years old, is based on a failed civilian version and was originally intended for hunting Russian subs? Was the in-service date for the new MRA4 delayed because of failures by Ministers to make a decision? Is it not the case that the Government are forcing the ethos of the armed forces to change from "can do" to "make do"?

Des Browne: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words of condolence and support for our armed forces, particularly for those most directly associated with the Nimrod force, who will find them welcome.
	As I explained, the board of inquiry process is a creature of statute. It is required to take place, it is instructed by the commissioning authority, which is the command of the RAF, and it is entirely independent of Ministers and should continue to be so. It is an important process as it stands in that environment, uninfluenced by Ministers. I am not in a position to give the hon. Gentleman assurances in relation to the length of time that the board of inquiry has taken—about 14 months, as he said. As he will be aware, the commissioning authority reconvened the board when it had reported because there were unanswered questions that it wished to have answered. That is entirely how the process is intended to work. It is self-contained and does not report until it is complete. That is in the control of the board, and so it should remain.
	Nobody should infer from what I have said that there is any criticism of the way in which the board of inquiry conducted its affairs or the time that it took. This was a very complex inquiry with a very small amount of evidence, and I think that they have done an absolutely excellent job with the evidence that was available in working out what most likely happened to the Nimrod XV230. I do not think that there is any room for saying that if it had done it more quickly it would have done a better or more appropriate job. I hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say about failures. He expresses in different words the failures identified by the BOI and that raise the questions required by the supplementary review.
	I would like to deal with an issue raised by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman that I did not address—the in-service date for the replacement MRA4. That has been delayed by about seven years. The principal reason for the delay has been technical challenges in the design and production of the MRA4, and we have had to extend the period of service for which we plan to keep the present MR2 fleet in use. I have to say, however, that despite the age of this aircraft, it is still considered to be the premier maritime patrol aircraft in the world. In other air forces around the world, there are aircraft older than that one which are performing perfectly good jobs.
	The age issue is relevant, as the board of inquiry identifies, but the most important question is whether the aircraft is fit to fly. Not only because of its very good safety record, but because of the application of the recommendations of the board of inquiry and the lessons learned from it, and the institution of further safety measures that have taken place as a result of our increasing knowledge—particularly of this incident—I am absolutely clear that the aircraft is airworthy and is fit to fly.

Des Browne: The issues that the right hon. Gentleman raises in relation to fire detection and suppression will of course be part of the review. Given the probable cause of the accident, had the risk from the hot pipe in that void of the aircraft been correctly estimated, it is almost certain that a range of options to reduce the likelihood of a fire would have been considered. They may have included redesign, to fit a fire suppression system in the dry bay, as it is known, but it is much more likely that action to prevent the risk by removing the potential ignition source would have been taken, and that is exactly what we have done since the loss of the XV230.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked whether such events are responded to appropriately when they occur. The decision to shut off that source of ignition was taken within a matter of days of the loss. There have been ongoing changes in relation to the safety of the aircraft in response to information as it emerges. We did not wait until the board of inquiry reported.
	It is not my intention to conduct a wide-ranging review beyond the circumstances of this incident for a very good reason: because I am conscious that part of the purpose of the review is to answer the questions that the families have, which are revealed by the board of inquiry. I am anxious—I have spoken to some of the families today, who also expressed this anxiety, which is perfectly understandable—that we should not have a process that delays the point at which they can achieve closure on the events, start to deal with their grieving and move on with their lives. I am very conscious of that. A further inquiry would of course be expected in the form of a coroner's inquest into the incident. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will understand that I shall have to balance all those considerations.
	In answer to the point that the right hon. Gentleman raised about whether we are concerned that the failings in the analysis and in the safety case for the Nimrod may have been repeated in other aircraft, we have asked those who have responsibility for safety cases to review them all in the light of the findings of the BOI, to ensure that there are no such failings in safety cases for other aircraft.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand hon. Members' concerns and interest in this statement, but could I ask for a single question and a single response, so that more may put their questions?

Des Browne: Because of the nature of a board of inquiry, it would have been entirely inappropriate for the families to be engaged in the process in the way that my hon. Friend suggests they could have been. The purpose of the board of inquiry was to identify what had happened and what lessons could be learned from that, in relation to the causes of the accident. I will give consideration to the issue that she raised in relation to the coroner's inquest. I am conscious that coroners are independent of Government and that the process of a coroner's inquest is designed to proceed in a particular way. I do not want to make decisions that change the character of a coroner's inquest for reasons to do with the circumstances of an individual case, but I will give the issue some consideration.

Angus Robertson: I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement and for the Ministry of Defence's efforts in briefing the families and parliamentarians today. I also welcome the review that he initiated in his statement. The inquiry confirmed that the crew did everything that they could in the circumstances to save the aircraft. They were brave professional aviators to the last. That is recognised at RAF Kinloss, and by the entire service and civilian community in Moray. We pay tribute to the crew today.
	The inquiry has found that the age of the Nimrod aircraft was a possible contributory factor to the crash in Afghanistan. That is a serious cause for concern as it impacts on the rest of the entire fleet, which is nearly 40 years old. Only recently, another Nimrod aircraft suffered a serious fuel leak and it has proved impossible fully to understand why it happened. It is also a cause for concern that the inquiry confirmed the loss of experienced engineering personnel from RAF Kinloss. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Ministry of Defence will do everything in its power to restore confidence in the Nimrod fleet, which performs such a vital military role?

Des Browne: I say to the hon. Gentleman that he will have time to read the BOI report in due course. All I am doing in this statement is reporting on that report. The three possible sources of contributory factors—maintenance, servicing and operational pressures—that could have been created by cost pressures have been discounted by the BOI. I have already said and will not repeat where the failings lie. In my view, those failings are best pursued in terms of investigation through the review that I will set up. That review will go back a considerable distance because it will need to. It will, of course, be open to the reviewer to consider where decisions may have been made in relation to cost.
	There were 33 recommendations, 21 of which have been accepted outright by the chain of command and the implementation of eight of which is being actively considered. Four have not been accepted. On recommendation 5—a recommendation to determine the specific life of fuel seals—the judgment was that a better precaution would be to take mitigating action through an improved inspection regime and a targeted seal replacement programme. Experience shows that the life of seals varies, and that simply replacing the seals at an arbitrary point may introduce more problems and have a detrimental effect on safety. One recommendation, on the utility of parachute escape on a Nimrod aircraft, is not being pursued as it is not considered feasible. Recommendation 20, to review the design of the No.1 fuel tank, is not being pursued because it has been addressed by the limiting of the amount of fuel in the tank. Recommendation 28, to increase the stock of BOI kits, is not being pursued because BOI kits are available from other sources.

Kevan Jones: I welcome the announcement of the review. Along with other members of the Defence Committee, I met Nimrod crews in Kandahar earlier in the year. They are doing a tremendous job in very difficult circumstances. I also welcome the announcement that the families will not have to fight for compensation through the civil courts, and that the Secretary of State wants to settle very early.
	Rumours are circulating in the aviation press that both BAE Systems and QinetiQ informed the MOD about the fuel problem two years ago. When the review takes place, will those rumours be thoroughly investigated? If they are accurate, we need to know the reasons why no action was taken, and also the reasons why the individuals concerned made that decision.

Francis Maude: I do not think that my hon. Friend meant that rough, but he has given great offence to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound), who is very sorry to be left out. I shall respond to my hon. Friend's invitation to continue, although I understand why Labour Members want to distract attention from their current concerns. That is understandable, but they will not get away with it.
	The most unbelievable part of the saga is the contention that neither Jon Mendelsohn nor Peter Watt knew that the practice was illegal. I have to say that that is literally incredible. The requirement to disclose the identity of donors was the central feature of the 1999 legislation that became the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000, and that is not some arcane technicality, byelaw or obscure rule. The breach of that requirement is a criminal offence, and anyone involved in political fundraising knows that. It is page 1 of the fundraising manual. Labour functionaries know that; after all, they publicly complain about donations made by—

Francis Maude: It may be that the point that I am about to make is the one about which the hon. Gentleman is so excited.
	The Labour party has publicly complained about donations made by unincorporated associations, such as the Midlands Industrial Council, although those arrangements are signed off by the Electoral Commission and the membership of the MIC has been made fully public. Despite that, Labour made a complaint to the Electoral Commission and received a response. A letter to the then Labour party chairman from the commission cleared donations by the MIC and explicitly referred to the central legal requirement that no one in the Labour party now claims ever to have heard of. The letter was sent in October last year, and states that the Act
	"requires that where a donor passes a donation to a political party via an agent, the agent must tell the party the original donor's details so that the party can, first, establish that the donor is a permissible donor...and second, record the donation with the Electoral Commission as coming not from the agent but from the original donor."
	Now, it is possible that the letter went only to the chairman of the Labour party and was not seen by the then general secretary or by anyone involved in fundraising and that they have all been operating in complete ignorance of what I repeat is a central provision of the 1999 legislation.

Francis Maude: I will give way in a short while, but I want to finish this passage in my speech.
	Peter Watt, the Labour party's former general secretary, sat with the Justice Secretary in the discussions that we held over recent months with Sir Haydn Phillips. In that time, he pressed for greater powers to be given to the Electoral Commission to probe exactly the issue that we are debating today—that is, whether donations had been paid through proxies. He was Labour's registered treasurer as well as its general secretary. Before that, he was the party's legal and compliance officer, and the rules and laws that we are discussing are the stuff of what a compliance officer deals with, day in and day out.
	I have a simple question for the Justice Secretary. Can he really say to the House that he believes Peter Watt's claim that he did not know that the practice was illegal? He must know as well as we do how hollow that claim must be.

Francis Maude: We know that things are getting really difficult for the Labour party when the House's ancient historian has to come to its rescue. That is ancient history.
	The Justice Secretary was the Prime Minister's campaign manager, so can he tell us what he knew about the attempted donation by Mrs. Kidd on behalf of Mr. Abrahams to the Prime Minister's leadership campaign? The Justice Secretary was not ignorant of the law; as he often tells us, he took the 1999 legislation through the House so he knows very well what the law required. Will he tell us today what he knew about the Abrahams donation proffered through Mrs. Kidd? What conversations did he have with his fellow campaign manager, Chris Leslie, who having, as he put it, "torn up" the cheque, helpfully passed Mrs. Kidd's details to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), now deputy leader of the Labour party? It is to that hospital pass that I turn now.
	The longer this saga goes on, the more unanswered questions arise. The right hon. and learned Lady's husband is the treasurer of the Labour party. Her defence is that she took donations only from people her campaign knew personally or who were registered donors to the Labour party, so who at Labour headquarters did her campaign call to check Mrs. Kidd's identity? How was it that Baroness Jay, on behalf of the Environment Secretary's campaign, knew that Mrs. Kidd was not the true donor and that it was some kind of proxy donation? If both Peter Watt and Jon Mendelsohn knew—as they admit—that Mrs. Kidd was not a bona fide donor, anyone at Labour headquarters who was equipped to respond to such a check on Mrs. Kidd's identity must surely have known that she was not the real donor.
	I turn to the curious incident of the illegal donation—we now know for sure that it was—to the Scottish leadership campaign of Wendy Alexander, or, as we must now call her, the human shield. Here again, there are more and more unanswered questions. There was clearly an illegal donation. Mr. Gordon, who solicited the donation, said he thought it came from a UK company and was therefore permissible. It then emerged that the campaign knew that there was literally a question mark over the donation; it appears in a schedule of donations, with the word "permissible?"—with a question mark—attached to Mr. Green's name. We read that the schedule apparently originated from Wendy Alexander's husband's computer.
	At first, Wendy Alexander said she did not know about the donation. That is not true. How do we know? Because it turned out that she had written a thank-you letter to Mr. Green, to thank him not for a donation from his company, but for his donation. If that were not enough, the letter seems to have been sent to his home address in Jersey, so it rather gives the game away. It is not for us to speculate about Wendy Alexander's position, but we note that the message has gone from Downing street for her to stand at her post lest the fallout is even closer to Labour's high command.

Anne Snelgrove: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"notes that political funding reform is essential to the future health of democracy in the UK and that Her Majesty's Gracious Speech said that the Government would bring forward proposals on the regulation of party finance and expenditure; regrets that a comprehensive reform package was not achieved by the inter-party talks owing to the unilateral decision of the Conservative Party to walk away from a draft agreement put to the parties by Sir Hayden Phillips, despite the fact that the draft agreement faithfully reflected recommendations in Sir Hayden's 15th March 2007 Report, which they"—
	the Conservatives—
	"had earlier welcomed; and urges all parties to engage constructively in order to achieve lasting reform in the public interest.".
	Let me begin with a proposition which, I hope, receives the approbation of Members on both sides of the House. In any modern society a well functioning democracy depends critically on the vibrancy of its political parties. It is the parties that are able to offer clear choices to the electorate. In turn, the activities of those political parties have to be paid for. Democracy does not come free.
	Until the last quarter of the 19th century, British politics was famously corrupt, but the introduction of the secret ballot and then of funding limits led to a rapid change in the activities of parties and to the conduct of elections—a change that has been sustained to the present day. Yes, there have been some well publicised problems, and in some cases, as we have heard, breaches of the law, which have occurred over the past 15 years and, by turn, have affected all the main parties and whose impact I do not seek to minimise.
	However, in comparison with our own history and with many comparable countries today, our party politics is clean, there is a remarkable absence of corruption, and almost everyone who gives to a political party, whether in large amounts or small, does so not to gain undue favour, but because they are committed to the principles of that party and regard it as their civic duty to support it. But it is right, too, that when issues have arisen, the House has sought to deal with them and, whenever possible, to do so on a consensual basis.

Andrew MacKay: Perhaps I can ask a question that the Secretary of State can answer. He piloted through the 1999 legislation so will he tell us in what circumstances an illegal donation to a political party is not sent back to the donor, but forfeited to the Electoral Commission?

Jack Straw: Of course, I will give way, but I want to make some progress first.
	Sir Hayden published an interim report in October 2006 and a final set of proposals in March 2007, which formed the basis for intensive discussions led by him, with a view to securing detailed, all-party agreement on the way forward. In that, we were helped by an agreed, unanimous report by the Constitutional Affairs Committee in December last year.
	Sir Hayden's report dealt with four sets of issues: the Electoral Commission and the regulatory framework; spending limits; donation limits, and state funding. On the first, there is all-party agreement, backed by the Constitutional Affairs Committee and the recent report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. All agree that the Electoral Commission should have a tighter focus on the regulation of political parties and the conduct of elections, and that it should be more proactive in policing the system overall. Reforms to that end will be included in legislation.
	The second issue is spending limits. When the original reforms were introduced in 1883, election campaigns were conducted over a relatively short period, and almost exclusively locally. However, huge sums of money were spent—equivalent to well over £100 million at today's prices. Those limits worked well so long as campaigning was mainly confined to local constituency campaigns, but with the development of national campaigning from the late 1950s onwards, the old regulatory system became very defective.

Stephen Pound: On the subject of the complicated mechanism that my right hon. Friend mentions, I am sure that the right hon. Member for Horsham did not mean to mislead the House earlier when he stated, in reply to my intervention, that all members of the Midlands Industrial Council had had their names published given that we hear that the names were still emerging as recently as two hours ago. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is either confusion or just coincidence?

Helen Jones: On the question of different political parties having different structures, will my right hon. Friend turn his attention to the Tory golfing society, which appears to donate to a number of Conservative associations? Can we have a transparent system for such societies, so that we can see whether any of their members actually play golf or whether they are simply funding mechanisms for the Tory party?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Regardless of the office that any right hon. or hon. Member holds, we must be careful when we are making an accusation or a personal attack on anyone and that we do not say anything that we might regret later. I ask the hon. Gentleman to be careful—I know that he did not mean it that way, but that is the way it came out. Let us just leave it at that.

David Heath: No; the right hon. Gentleman had his chance and he blew it.
	The concern is not only that the Government have fallen short of the expectations they themselves set out when introducing that legislation. I do not blame the Lord Chancellor for this, nor do I blame the plurality of Members of his party, just as I do not blame the plurality of Members of any party for the actions of a few within their parties. There is, however, a concern that the party of Government have systematically subverted their own legislation, and that is a very serious matter indeed.
	The levity that has been displayed on the current occasion is entirely inappropriate. This latest episode has been described in the newspapers as a fiasco and a farce, and one commentator was prompted to employ a word I would not normally use in a debate: "degringolade". I have no idea whether it is a degringolade, but I do think it is a tragedy. It is a tragedy not because of the particular circumstances, but because the consequence is further to undermine confidence in, and the standing of, not only the Labour party, but all the parties represented in this House, and that is a matter of concern to all of us.
	Let me briefly deal with the present situation. There are questions that still need to be asked; the Lord Chancellor, or whoever replies to the debate, will probably not be able to give the answers, but they are questions that the country is still asking. I have no idea whether this is incompetence on a grand scale in the higher echelons of the Labour party or conspiracy—I think that the investigations will show that. I must say, however, that if it is incompetence, that is very difficult to believe given the calibre of some of the people involved and given the very clear instructions in the law.
	The right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) was right to say that what we are talking about is not to do with just some petty rule book—this is about not the rules of a game, but the law of the land. There is not only a prima faciae case of it having been broken in this instance, but that is also by the admission of the Prime Minister.
	We hear that the Prime Minister's party leadership campaign team rejected the donations from Janet Kidd. Why did it do that, and did it tell anyone else in the party when it did so?

Clive Efford: I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's speech, but he really cannot get away with the answer that he gave earlier about the Michael Brown money. Has he been approached by any of the people who have suffered from the fraud by Michael Brown and has the Liberal party given any consideration to how he came by that money and whether it is morally obliged to give it back?

Gordon Prentice: On the point about rich individuals bankrolling political parties, is it not scandalous that the Conservative peer Lord Laidlaw, who is a tax exile, gave £6 million in gifts, loans and donations to the Conservatives but they brush that to one side as if it were of no consequence?

David Heath: That is where I do not understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. It is true that we found disgraceful abuses in the way that some unions administered their political funds, and we dealt with them in the negotiations. We asked people to go away and work on those problems: they came back with recommendations and, as a result, the proposals from Sir Hayden Phillips contain ways to deal with egregious abuses of the system. For example, unions will not be able to affiliate more members than they actually have, or pay over money that they have not received.

Tony Lloyd: Yes. Of course, we are sorry. There is a degree of synthetic anger among Opposition Members, but there is not a Member on the Labour Benches who is not rightly angry and annoyed at being so badly let down during recent events. There is no doubt that puts us in a difficult position before the British electorate.
	People watching in the Gallery and on television are probably dismayed by the tone of parts of the debate, which descended into mutual cat-calling—I may do the same in a moment—but it is worth reminding the House that none the less the public are entitled to expect that we clean up our political act and do so in a non-partisan way that is not seen to be in the interests of any one party or any grouping of parties. That is why, like others, I regret the fact that the Conservative party chose to pull out of the Hayden Phillips process at a late stage, having previously made a public commitment in the Chamber, which we thought at the time was a genuine attempt to be constructive. Sadly, that proved not to be the case because in the end the Conservatives' vested interest outweighed the need to reach a proper conclusion.
	As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) is not a leadership candidate, it will not be to his detriment when I say that I normally have a lot of respect for him. However, I think he dissembled a little on the question of Michael Brown. He said there were two questions to be asked—how and why. How did a rich donor become so rich? In the case of Mr. Brown, that question was not asked. Why was the donation made—what did the donor seek to gain? That question, too, was not properly addressed by the hon. Gentleman today.
	More important, the Liberal Democrats as a party should be considering not simply whether they complied with the spirit of the legislation in accepting the donation—I recognise that it was accepted in good faith—but whether it was legitimate to hold on to it when the money obviously came from crooked sources. They must consider whether their position on the matter is consistent with the cleanness and openness they now propose.

Tony Lloyd: We have to look at the whole question of what the spirit of the law is. The Labour party is entirely in the wrong place at present and we have no excuses, but I hope that all parties will look at the spirit of the law.
	I want to make two points. Today, the Conservatives were questioned about the role of Lord Ashcroft and whether he is a tax exile. They refused to answer those questions and Lord Ashcroft has made it clear that he will not answer them either. That completely contradicts the spirit of clean politics that the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) spoke about earlier. He told my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound) that questions about the origins of money from the Midlands Industrial Council had already been answered. That is not true and the right hon. Gentleman either knows it or should know it, because the MIC secretary, David Wall, announced that the names of new MIC donors would not be revealed. He said:
	"If you're asking me would we make public announcements when we have a new member then no we wouldn't."
	That is a clear statement, so I invite the right hon. Member for Horsham to confirm that from now on, in the spirit of openness, the Conservative party will make it absolutely clear who funds the MIC and bodies such as Scottish business groups, Focus on Scotland, the Carlton club political committee, Fresh Start and many others. We know that over the last few years, the Midlands Industrial Council has given some £2.8 million either to the Conservative party directly or to Conservative support organisations.

Tony Lloyd: I will not, if my hon. Friend will forgive me.
	If we are talking about openness and transparency, I invite the right hon. Member for Horsham to make sure that he operates on the same transparent basis that he asks of the rest us.
	I want to put a slightly different hat on and talk about the role of the trade unions. The Conservative party would love to turn the debate on to that subject. Let me say this, without any fear of contradiction: the money coming from the trade unions into the Labour party is the most scrutinised money in British politics. The money given to my party and the one or two other parties that benefit from trade union moneys is so regulated that every pound is properly traceable. I say to Opposition Members that not only has that money not at any stage been challenged by the Electoral Commission or the certification officer, but the Neill inquiry said that it was satisfied with the way in which matters were handled. It is important that we establish that.

Tony Lloyd: I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
	In this country, we have a democratic trade union movement—one that even Opposition Members should be proud of. Our trade unions are not like the fixed trade unions in other countries. The trade unions have never run away from the idea of modernising their relationship with the Labour party. They are making it quite clear even now—when the leader of my party spoke at the weekend—that that relationship will be modernised.
	There will be discussions within the ambit of the labour movement on a basis that will make it absolutely clear to trade union members where their money goes. In the end, it is accountability to members, and transparency, that matter. If my party had had that level of transparency with respect to private donors, none of us would be facing the allegations and charges that we face today. In that context, I am very proud of the trade union movement. I am proud of its link with the Labour party—a link that we do not intend to break. It is important that the Labour party continues to maintain links with the trade unions. That is an important part of Labour's democracy and the democracy of this country.
	I make the following challenge to Conservative Members. The trade union movement has always offered to work with the spirit of the times and in the national interest. Will they ask Lord Ashcroft to do the same? Will they ask him to make it clear where his money comes from and whether he is prepared not to treat the Conservative party as a wholly owned subsidiary of Ashcroft enterprises—one that he has completely bought? Frankly, that is the only explanation for the Conservative party—under orders from its paymaster—turning away from the Hayden Phillips process.

Tony Lloyd: I would accept an awful lot more from the right hon. Gentleman if he would get Lord Ashcroft to come forward and make it quite clear where his money comes from and whether he pays tax on it in this country. That is the real challenge. Is the Tory party prepared to wean itself off the Ashcroft moneys and clean up its own house? In the end, that is the measure that the British public will judge the Conservative party on—not whether we can have an agreement across the different parties on a cleaner political system, but whether that agreement will operate only between the Liberal Democrat party and the Labour party, leaving the Conservative party once again on the sidelines, facing the allegation that it does not want to clean up British politics.

Andrew Tyrie: The answer to the question from the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) is that we certainly will be prepared to wean ourselves off the Ashcroft money if the Labour party is prepared to engage in meaningful trade union reform. Unfortunately, we have not seen that from Labour so far.
	The occasion for this debate is another massive scandal about the way in which Labour has been funding itself over the past 10 years, but the real reason we are here goes much deeper and concerns both parties. We are here because a large proportion of the electorate believe that donations to political parties buy influence, access and honours—and, frankly, the public may be right. That is the canker at the heart of our otherwise largely uncorrupt system. I have never believed that the honours awarded in the 1980s were wholly unrelated to party donations, but since 1997 things have got much worse. It has not just been cash for honours. We have had Ecclestone, Mittal, PowderJect, Enron—the list goes on and on.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Certainly not. I would be very grateful if the hon. Gentleman would choose a phrase that is suitable.

Andrew Tyrie: The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that it is up to each party to decide how to allocate spending locally, within the overall envelope. He also knows that he mentioned only one of a number of proposals made by Hayden Phillips. We want to put those other proposals in the public domain, but the right hon. Gentleman has flatly refused to allow us to publish them. All he has to do is tell Hayden Phillips that he would like to see them in the public domain; then the public could have a wider debate about all the other suggestions that have been put to us by him.
	The right hon. Gentleman continues to contribute to the debate with views that any reasonable person might conclude appear to mislead. He repeated, mantra-like, the view that we started off with in the talks, together: that we were engaged in an arms race. He completely ignored the fact that during those discussions, comprehensive research was commissioned that shows the opposite to be the case. Hayden Phillips's team produced a detailed, thorough research paper, which I am not allowed to show the House because the right hon. hon. Gentleman will not allow me, showing that the arms race had been greatly exaggerated, yet he persists with that mantra.

Andrew Tyrie: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not; I have already given way a number of times, and I only want to make one more short set of remarks on what is needed now. First, in the immediate future, it will be difficult to restart talks until Labour's position is more stable. I am still reflecting on the fact that for a year I have been sitting opposite Labour negotiators, one of whom has admitted systematically breaking the very rules that we were trying to improve in the negotiations. In our talks, that same man supported stronger investigative powers for the Electoral Commission. There are to be inquiries by Lord Whitty and the police, and we need to wait until we know where those inquiries are taking us, and with whom we will be negotiating.
	Secondly, we must keep focused on the real source of the problem. When Tony Blair wrote Hayden Phillips's terms of references, he made that absolutely clear; the issue was about donations and transparency, not expenditure. The then Prime Minister was right. The crisis has been caused by the big donations culture over many years.
	The ball is now in Labour's court. It must know by now that it cannot secure a meaningful or lasting agreement from the House while it is in a state of denial about the need to reform the union link.
	The plain fact is that right now Labour is financing itself with the donations of millions of people who do not even vote Labour, never mind decide to donate to it. That is morally unacceptable, and it has to stop. The current treatment of affiliation fees is a legacy from a bygone era. In the 21st century we should have gone beyond the age of corporatism and collectivism. We Conservative Members want to work with Labour to clean up that tawdry area of politics, but to do so, we need a counter-party. If Labour comes forward with serious proposals to give genuine individual choice to millions of affiliated members, the talks can resume immediately. I very much hope that after reflection, the Prime Minister will deliver what is required to get the talks going again.

David Winnick: We have been asked to shorten our contributions. It will not come as a surprise to anyone in the House to hear that the debate has not helped us to advance towards a solution on party funding. No one expected that it would; Opposition day motions do not normally lead to a calm atmosphere. We are in the same position that we were in previously.
	I intend to make what may be described as critical comments about contributions to my party, but first, as far as Lord Ashcroft is concerned, it would have been much better if we had clarified his tax status. It is simply impossible to believe that a person who bankrolls Tory candidates in marginal constituencies does not even pay tax in the United Kingdom. They will not say so in this debate, but privately a number of Conservative Members must have at least some reservations about the role that Lord Ashcroft plays, even more so if he does not pay income tax in the United Kingdom. As for the Liberal Democrats, it would have been far better for their party's integrity if the £2.5 million had been returned, somehow or other. I was not altogether impressed by the excuse that was given.
	When we hear about accusations such as those made today, at least we can say that no Member of Parliament is being accused of being paid for asking questions, and no money in brown envelopes is being passed around, so I suppose that, to some extent, we have made some progress. It should not be forgotten that the Committee on Standards in Public Life only came about as a result of the media's exposure of what was going on in those days. Of course I accept that only a small minority of Conservative MPs was responsible, but their actions undoubtedly brought Parliament into disrepute. When the Committee was set up—it was known of course as the Nolan Committee, after its first chairman—John Major was clear that it would not be able to look into party funding; that was excluded. The present Government are to be congratulated on removing the bar on the Committee looking into party funding. Legislation was introduced and other reforms were carried out. Those reforms were absolutely essential, and many of us campaigned for them when we were in opposition.
	Having said all that, I am concerned that my party has been lax—I might say far too lax—in receiving donations from very rich individuals. I have had concerns and apprehensions about that for some time. No, I have not raised it on the Floor of the House, but I did mention it on one occasion at a private meeting of Labour MPs. I felt that those donors, with some exceptions, wanted to be on the winning side in 1997, but they had no genuine commitment to what my party has always stood for. I understand that in all those circumstances, if they were willing to donate, the leadership of the party took the view, "Why shouldn't we receive the money?"

David Winnick: The hon. Gentleman will get his brownie points for making such party points. He has got it off his chest. I am aware of all those names. If he is asking me whether I am proud that such people were involved—they go back to the 1970s and were few in number—of course I am not proud of it. I am ashamed. That goes for everyone in the Labour party, whether we are Labour Members of Parliament or not. All those who are active in our political movement and in the trade unions are ashamed of all those matters. We have never said otherwise.
	Why do these very rich individuals want to contribute? In my view, with some exceptions, as I said, they want rewards. They want to end up in another place or get a knighthood. The hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) smiled. I have a list of the top 10 companies that donated to the Conservative party between 1979 and 1992—United Biscuits, Hanson, Taylor Woodrow, George Weston Holdings and the rest. It is interesting that in eight of those 10 companies, every company executive or chair received some kind of reward. In the case of United Biscuits, that was one peerage and one knighthood, in the case of Hanson, two peerages, Taylor Woodrow, one peerage and one knighthood, P&O—we know about P&O, do we not?—one peerage and three knighthoods, and Glaxo, two knighthoods. Of the two companies that did not receive anything, one, George Weston Holdings, was headed by a Canadian, and the other company had two directors, of whom one was a hereditary peer.

David Winnick: No, I will not give way.
	What are required—we will not get them today, but hopefully over time—are the common-sense solutions that the public want. The public are cynical about party funding. In our constituencies they probably say that we are all as bad as each other. What happened in the 1990s brought Parliament into disrepute. Anything that brings this institution into disrepute is a blow to parliamentary democracy. I hope that as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice suggested, in future talks in a calmer atmosphere, we can look at possible solutions. One is on cap on donations from private individuals. Another is less money being spent in local and national campaigns.
	Some of the money that is spent in general elections, referred to as the arms race, serves no purpose—for example, the Tory posters in 1997 about Tony Blair's eyes. Was a single extra Tory vote gained as a result? Having criticised Tory posters, I should say that some of our own posters have not been all that brilliant. Finally, a limit on the money spent in constituencies between elections would do no harm at all.
	I look forward to a period, hopefully during this Parliament, although I am not optimistic, when agreement can be reached between the parties on party funding. That is what the public want. We often say that we want to serve the public. I say without hesitation that the overwhelming majority of the public who take an interest in this matter would like us to find a solution, instead of the constant accusation and counter-accusation that is made on so many occasions. We need to clean up our act and we should do so as quickly as possible.

David Ruffley: I am most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The heat has been taken off the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) by the game refusal of Ms Wendy Alexander, the Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament, to resign. She is, of course, a friend and ally of the Prime Minister. Although we quite accept that she would not deliberately have tried to commit a criminal offence for the lowly sum of £950, we have to ask what she could have been thinking of, given that the Jersey-based donor, Mr. Paul Green, said today on Scottish radio:
	"This has to be gross mismanagement...I cannot understand why they"—
	meaning the Labour party—
	"continue to maintain that the donation had come through a UK company when I had a letter from Wendy Alexander thanking me personally."
	May I ask the Minister whether the Prime Minister has full confidence in Ms Wendy Alexander and her competence? The fact is that she is the Prime Minister's lightning rod—if she were to resign, it could lead to a domino effect of further resignations, starting with that of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), deputy leader of the Labour party, in relation to whom the Prime Minister said:
	"The money was not lawfully declared."
	Although the British public are not much impressed by the rank incompetence that I have described, there is something that they dislike more: Labour self-serving. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has famously proposed for all parties a cap on donations—whether given by businessmen, individuals or trade unions—to reduce dependency on large donors. We heard about it in detail from my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie). Shamefully, the Labour party has blocked the proposal, asserting that union affiliation fees should be exempt from any cap on donations. Yet those fees are decided by union bosses; they are not the result of the active decisions of individual union members to donate to the Labour party. We are asked to believe that a donation from a trade unionist is independent while a block donation from a trade union is not. The Labour party national executive committee has pledged on the record vigorously to oppose plans for capping. It has said:
	"the Labour Party cannot accept a statutory uniform donation cap...it would undermine the Labour Party federal structure".
	Yet Sir Hayden Phillips stated:
	"a limit on donations need not in my view challenge the Party's constitutional relationship with the trade unions".
	Why did he say that, and why did the union paymasters say something different?
	Is it a coincidence that the Labour Government are moving ahead with more than 60 concessions to the trade union movement under the banner of the 2004 Warwick agreement? That deal included a £10 million taxpayer-funded modernisation fund for the unions, the weakening of anti-strike legislation and the shelving of plans to align the retirement age for public sector workers with that for private sector workers—a disgrace.
	Labour's logic—I hope the House will forgive the exaggeration—is flawed and self-serving. Last summer, the Prime Minister promised to take crime off the streets; we did not know that he was going to shove it into Labour HQ.

Adam Price: I say to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) that simply saying, "They are as bad as us," is not a positive message to send to the public. [Hon. Members: "Say sorry!"] I expressed my regret to the Committee in question— [Interruption.] I did, in actual fact. The hon. Gentleman will be able to see the speck in my party's eye if he admits the mote in his own. We all have an interest in cleaning up politics, and that is what we should be debating.
	Part of the problem is not only the original crime but the lack of candour that follows it. We have seen that in Scotland recently. We were told that Wendy Alexander did not know anything about the donation, but subsequently a letter that thanked the donor in question came to light. The letter said:
	"Scottish Labour will reform, renew and reconnect with the Scottish people. We will earn their trust again".
	That is no way to earn the trust of the people of Scotland or any other part of the United Kingdom. Subsequently, we heard about the Cardiff dinner in April, in respect of which a donation that should have been declared by the Secretary of State for Wales was not. I do not know what it is about the Labour party and dinners in April; we have heard about the other dinner between Jon Mendelson and David Abrahams. We must have clarity on the issue. The Secretary of State for Wales has admitted that there were other unregistered donations. Will the Minister tell us how many unregistered donations there have been and whether any other Labour politicians gave money to the campaign of the Secretary of State for Wales? Were any ministerial meetings discussed or held as a result of that fundraising dinner?
	The Secretary of State for Wales broke not only Electoral Commission rules, but Labour party ones. He should have given 15 per cent. of all monies raised to the Labour party. He broke his own party's rules as well as those on donations that the Government made law. There is simply no excuse for that. We all lose as a result of such behaviour; that, unfortunately, is the reality.
	As many hon. Members have said, we need a cap on donations, but we also need a level playing field. The people will not understand if the Labour party produces a Bill that is seen as one-sided—with a cap on one side of the equation, but no reform of trade union funding on the other. Senior members of Plaid Cymru received election ballots on the Labour party deputy leadership campaign. They never ticked the box relating to the affiliated political fund, yet they were counted as funders of the Labour party. That is because, unfortunately, it appears that a small number of individuals within trade unions abuse the system. Unless we get clarity on that, we will not have a level playing field on party funding. Let us all get behind a proper party funding Bill that will finally take out of British politics that kind of sleaze, which ultimately undermines all politics for all political parties.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I say to hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies that constant interventions from a sedentary position are not allowed. They simply disrupt the debate and have no sensible effect. If hon. Members wish to intervene, they must stand in the normal way and if the person on their feet does not want to give way, that is the end of it.

Jonathan Djanogly: When we talk about modernising unions, the reaction in previous debates has been that the Conservatives did that 30 years ago and that the matter does not need further consideration. That was the extent of the Government's bias.
	Then, under huge pressure, last weekend the Prime Minister at last conceded the connection between the political contribution that a union member makes as an individual and that money ending up in the Labour party's coffers. For those who think that that is stating the obvious, it is not. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham pointed out, some unions have made larger contributions than can be attributed to their political fund contributing members. If we also consider that some unions affiliate at regional and local level, and that other help, such as manpower, which the Lord Chancellor described as completely transparent, is unrecorded, existing transparency and reporting are nothing more than a joke. If the Prime Minister thinks that his paltry weekend rehash of existing proposals will be perceived as anything other than a smokescreen for his party's huge complacency and failings, he should think again.
	The Prime Minister is unwilling to follow through the logic of accepting the individual position over the collective position of union members. The so-called openness of Labour and unions to changing their relationship, which the hon. Member for Manchester, Central described, is not the historic position. However, I hope that it is the position now. Yes, the Prime Minister said that the 30-year-old opt-out rights for union political contributions should now be clearly stated to members, but they have certainly not been to date.
	Why, in this day and age, should an individual be assumed to want to contribute to a political party for which he probably did not vote? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham explained, we need to keep in mind the fact that most trade unionists are not Labour voters. The 2005 British election survey revealed that 54.3 per cent. of trade unionists voted for parties other than Labour. That is why there should be a specific opt-in to making political fund contributions. I opt in to paying my membership of the Conservative party, and so should someone who pays money to the Labour party. Union members who opt in to paying into the political fund should also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds noted, have the right to decide to which political cause their money goes.
	The regulatory framework for unions, through the certification officer, is clearly in dire need of modernisation. We are especially concerned that there should be a review of the relationship between the certification officer and the Electoral Commission, not least as regards registering political donations. In July, a written question revealed that the Electoral Commission had no record of any meeting with the certification officer or his representatives. That is no way to run a system to monitor union contributions.
	The Lord Chancellor appeared to be desperate to move on with funding talks, but flip-flopped about including unions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester spotted. We need to change the law and set funding limits but we also need to update the modernisation of unions. That clear message comes out of the debate.
	We still have a problem that will not go away. No matter how many laws are passed, legislation is no substitute for integrity. We currently have laws that require timely disclosure of donations, which Labour has broken. We also have laws that require people to declare their indirect donations, which Labour has again broken. We could introduce more laws, and then Labour could flout them, too. If the Liberal Democrats or anyone else think that using state funding will improve the ethics of party funding, they should think again. Nothing shows that to be the case.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester said, the Conservative party has a problem. We could discuss new funding proposals with Labour and the Liberal Democrats for ever and a day, but are the Government capable of abiding by whatever rules we finally agree? Can Labour be trusted to deal with us fairly on funding? The great questions here, as matters stand, are: can Labour be trusted to deal with us fairly on funding and, more important, can it be trusted by the British people?

Bridget Prentice: I should have liked to thank all hon. Members for a positive, thought-provoking and inspiring debate, but I doubt, given your recent remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker, about interventions, that that would have been a strictly accurate description of the past couple of hours. However, I want to put on record my thanks, especially to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) for his measured response to the debate and for the fact that he, like us, still wants to make progress in the next weeks and months on the way in which we deal with party funding.
	I also particularly want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd), the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, who apologised for the incidents that have taken place in the past couple of weeks—as indeed do I, and as did the Prime Minister, very clearly, as soon as he knew. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) should listen more carefully to some of these things.
	I could not agree more with my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), who said that anything that brings Parliament into disrepute is a blow to parliamentary democracy. Maintaining and rebuilding faith in political parties is vitally important for us all, and I continue to hope that hon. Members from all parties will engage constructively in taking this forward. How political parties are funded matters because of the central role that they play in democracy. We should be able, in this democracy of ours, to have debates and conversations about the importance of political parties instead of the kind of debate that we have had today.
	The most recent review of party funding concluded that
	"the debate about the financing of our political parties is"
	therefore
	"a debate about the health of our democracy and how we can improve it."

Angus Robertson: Why did the Hayden Phillips talks include only the three UK parties in the discussions on a formal and ongoing basis? Will the hon. Lady give a commitment that future talks will, on the basis of equality, include the political parties of Northern Ireland and the parties of Government of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru?

Bridget Prentice: I am afraid that I have to say to the hon. Gentleman, whose constituency association receives funding of some £3,000 from the Churchill Luncheon Club, that his analysis of Sir Hayden's report as regards the increase in expenditure is plain wrong. In fact, Sir Hayden shows that support for the principle of continuous spending limits at a national level is crucial. The importance of effective spending limits cannot be overstated. The Constitutional Affairs Committee observed that the United States is a constructive example of the way that we do not want this country to go if spending were left unchecked.
	We heard many comments about trade unions and donation caps. Sir Hayden acknowledged the distinction between affiliation fees paid to political parties by trade unions, which are in effect an aggregation of individual donations, and the other donations that are paid to parties from trade unions. He recommended that the process for treating political levy donations individually should be more transparent and traceable. We accept that, and we are committed to bringing greater transparency to political donations, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said only yesterday. Other donations from trade unions would be subject to any cap on donations, treating the trade unions in the same way as other major donors to political parties. Both the Constitutional Affairs Committee and Sir Hayden's review said that limiting donations to political parties from private sources would require an increase in financial support from public funds. As my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor said, we are yet to be convinced that there is public acceptance of an extension of state funding, but we will continue to consider and consult on that issue.

Bridget Prentice: Of course, it is not for me to answer for the official Opposition, but if my hon. Friend is referring to the fact that this Government have increased the money that is given to the Opposition parties, particularly the £4.4 million that the Conservatives now get from Short money, that is something worth reflecting on.
	I hope that we will get all-party consensus on the way forward, but we will not accept one-party deadlock—a breakdown that serves only to block progress.  [ Interruption. ]

Bridget Prentice: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I hope that the official Opposition will reflect on the views that were expressed by the shadow Leader of the House in March this year:
	"We welcome the publication of Sir Hayden Phillips' report. We accept his main recommendations...we are happy to discuss spending caps on all year round non-election campaigning and proposals for tighter controls on third-party expenditure".—[ Official Report, 15 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 469.]
	I hope that the Leader of the Opposition is not going down the road advocated by the recent treasurer of the Conservative party, Lord McAlpine, who said in his autobiography, "Once a Jolly Bagman":
	"Personally, I do not think that we ever should have shown how we spent our money. The Conservative Central Office is not a charity dedicated to helping the sick and the suffering...There was a black hole in the Party's finances...The solution was easy: we gave up publishing accounts."
	If that is the level of debate from the Conservatives, I suspect that we will not get very far in all-party consensus, but nor will we allow them to stop us and other parties from moving forward and making party political funding transparent, clear and easy to follow.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We now come to the next motion, on the performance of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I can tell the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister. I also remind the House that there will be a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Eric Martlew: I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman refers to animal diseases, so may I take him back to mad cow's disease and BSE and ask him how many humans died because of the incompetence of the Conservative Government?

Peter Ainsworth: You may well decide, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that has very little to do with DEFRA— [Interruption.]
	The Government's amendment even "congratulates the Government" on setting up the Department in the first place. I rather doubt that many who have had to contend with DEFRA over the years will share in the general air of back-slapping. Certainly not the one third of farmers who live in poverty; certainly not those affected by movement restrictions and export bans during the recent foot and mouth outbreak; certainly not those who were driven to the brink of financial ruin as a result of DEFRA's bungled implementation of the single farm payment; and certainly not the insurance industry, which this week called for "improved national leadership" on flood defences.
	It would be good to be able to say that the hardship caused by the incompetent handling of farm payments was now behind us, but it is not. Apart from the fact that the whole fiasco could end up with the taxpayer having to foot a bill for hundreds of millions of pounds in European Union fines, nearly £75,000 is still owed to farmers from 2005, and £1.7 million remains outstanding from last year.
	It was the mess at the Rural Payments Agency that substantially kick-started the financial problems that have dogged the Department ever since. Last year DEFRA Ministers were forced to cut budgets by over £200 million, and this year we learn that further cuts of around £270 million are needed to balance the books. Of course Conservative Members are always keen to find sustainable ways of reducing unnecessary expenditure, but forced cuts brought about by financial mismanagement are a different matter altogether.
	Let us take the impact on Natural England, which is being asked to cut its budget for next year by £12.5 million. Today it published a board paper which sets out the likely consequences and presents options that will impinge on measures to promote biodiversity, wildlife enhancement and nature reserves. The paper states:
	"We are therefore once again"—
	that "once again" is quite telling, for this is not an isolated instance—
	"fire fighting to secure a budget in the short term that allows Natural England to operate."
	An organisation that is, I believe, less than two years old is already fighting a battle for its survival, and not for the first time.
	Then there is the issue of bovine tuberculosis. We are still without an adequate policy to tackle bovine TB, which has so far cost the taxpayer more than £500 million. There is also the seemingly relentless rise in regulation. There is much talk of light-touch regulation, but the cost to business of DEFRA regulations is now put at about £530 million a year.

Peter Ainsworth: I think that that is a rather pathetic question. The hon. Gentleman might like to tell us whether DEFRA is on target to fulfil its promise, set out in "Maximising outcomes, minimising burdens", which commits it to delivering a £158.8 million-a-year reduction in administrative burdens by 2010. Are the Government on target for that? I wonder. I think not.
	This is not how it should be. Farmers should feel that the Government are there to serve them, not the other way round. Basic competence on the part of Government is an essential prerequisite for the important task of rebuilding trust. There should be a positive relationship between the farming industry and DEFRA's policy process.
	More broadly, the rural community as a whole has been neglected. Those living in rural areas know only too well the problems that they face with declining services, problems over accommodation and a huge programme of post office closures. Without its own house in order, it is small wonder that people have lost faith in DEFRA's ability to handle the big issues. It seems caught in a downward spiral, with high staff turnover, hundreds seeking early retirement, and rock-bottom morale. The fact that the Department has a part-time permanent secretary may or may not impinge on its performance; all I can say is that if I were the permanent secretary at DEFRA, I would probably want to be part-time as well.
	To add insult to injury, we discovered recently that over the last five years DEFRA had spent more than £1 billion on consultancy fees. That is a staggering sum, and what is there to show for it? Does dependence on outside consultants reflect, in some way, a sense of insecurity within the Department itself?
	It is not just rural areas that have been let down. This is the Department charged with leading the way on efforts to combat climate change. Tellingly, last year it quietly dropped its long-standing manifesto commitment to cut carbon emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010. In fact carbon emissions have risen since 1997, and fell last year by only 0.1 per cent. Plans to encourage microgeneration in homes and offices have been half-hearted, with reduced grants— [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) blaming another Department?

Eric Martlew: The hon. Gentleman should ask the leader of his party about the issue of generation of wind.

Peter Ainsworth: I take the hon. Gentleman's intervention at face value, and assure him that the Leader of the Opposition will have a great deal to say on that very subject in a few days' time.
	Since DEFRA came into being with a remit to reduce household waste the amount of household waste has risen by 9 per cent., and the commitment to require 2.5 per cent. of United Kingdom transport fuels to come from biofuels by 2008 has been made without the ensuring of safeguards for sustainable sourcing of fuel crops. In the aftermath of the summer floods, serious questions remain. The Government have pressed ahead with building on flood plains contrary to the advice of the Environment Agency, and among a variety—a plethora—of different agencies there are no clear lines of responsibility for surface water flooding.
	On the question of climate change, it is essential for DEFRA to be respected across Whitehall; but if it cannot manage its own affairs, why should anyone take it seriously? Only the other day we learned that the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform was seeking to water down the United Kingdom's commitment to increasing the amount of our energy coming from renewable sources. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister himself delivered what was billed as a major speech on climate change; three days later the Department for Transport announced a third runway at Heathrow. There is no joined-up thinking at all.
	Given the scale, complexity and urgency of the challenges being faced across rural communities and in the wider environment, now more than ever DEFRA needs to be up to the job. Instead, we have a Department that has presided over rising carbon dioxide emissions, increasing levels of household waste and plummeting farm incomes; a Department committed to raising green taxation as a percentage of total taxation which has seen green taxes fall as a percentage of total taxation to the lowest level for 13 years; a Department which cuts the budgets of local animal health teams when they have rarely been in such demand, because it has lost track of how much money it originally allocated; a Department which runs up a projected overspend on administration of £50 million in only six months; a Department whose disastrous handling of farm payments could land the taxpayer with an EU fine of £400 million; a Department whose negligent approach to biosecurity was responsible for an outbreak of foot and mouth disease that cost the farming industry and taxpayers further millions.
	Ensuring the future of British farming, supporting the stewardship of our beautiful landscapes and providing a sustainable future for our children are vital tasks. We are in danger of paying a very heavy price for entrusting them to a Department that has become a byword for incompetence.

Hilary Benn: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"commends the Government on its swift and effective action to deal with four different disease outbreaks in England in 2007; welcomes the announcement on 8th October 2007 of an aid package to farmers worth £12.5 million through extra support to hill farmers, fallen stock collection, meat promotion and help for farming support charities; congratulates the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on its effective emergency planning arrangements in conjunction with the emergency services and local authorities to warn those at risk from the recent tidal surge and initiate precautionary evacuation; applauds the increase in spending on flood defences since 1997, a 30 per cent. increase in real terms to around £600 million, and the announcement that spending will rise to a maximum of £800 million by 2010-11; and further congratulates the Government for bringing together environment, rural affairs and food and farming under Defra to create a unified structure essential for the effective delivery of integrated Government policies across these issues.".
	Let me tell the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) and his hon. Friends that I genuinely welcome the opportunity he has given the Government to tell the House about DEFRA's work, although it is pretty obvious to me from the speech we have just heard that he is unaware of much of what DEFRA is doing. I can tell him, for instance, that the permanent secretary is not part-time—but first I invite the House to join me in congratulating DEFRA's chief scientist Bob Watson and the other scientists at DEFRA on the contribution that they have made to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has been recognised in the award of this year's Nobel peace prize. It is not often that a Secretary of State is able to stand at the Dispatch Box and congratulate civil servants with whom he has the privilege of working on such recognition for, as the Norwegian Nobel committee stated,
	"their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
	If we are going to talk about the Department and its staff—and I shall have more to say on this subject—we should recognise achievements, and that is quite an achievement.
	I want to begin on a matter on which I can agree with the hon. Gentleman: when things go wrong we must be honest about that and put them right. I fully accept that in 2006 there were severe problems with the single farm payments to farmers. That caused deep and genuine hardship across the country and I am very sorry for what happened. However, Departments should also be judged on what they do to try to deal with problems and, as the House knows, this year the Rural Payments Agency has managed to pay 98 per cent. of payments for the second scheme year before the end of the payment window of 30 June, exceeding the target we set as part of the recovery programme, and I expect performance to continue to improve—indeed, I am determined that it will do so.

Hilary Benn: I can indeed confirm that that is my understanding of what Scotland and Wales are doing, but I would just ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on what I said: I am determined that there should be continued improvements, and I intend to report to the House as and when those improvements are made. Before the hon. Gentleman waxes too lyrical, I would however just like to point out that the Conservatives in their James review of 2004 proposed cutting £210 million from the RPA operating budget, and introducing a levy on subsidies paid—I am not entirely sure whether that would have been allowed. Heaven forbid that the Government might have accepted the advice at the time. For some reason, that was not mentioned in the opening speech from the Opposition.
	I also agree that this summer has been one of real and severe hardship for the livestock industry, and the House has rightly debated foot and mouth and bluetongue, and there has also been the recent avian flu problem. On foot and mouth, there were problems with the Pirbright system and we have put them right: in the recent Merial incident, the system contained the failure. We will now see what further action is needed in light of what happened, including more specific licence conditions.

Hilary Benn: I have talked to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and he and other Ministers have been supporting the tourism industry during the outbreak. One of the most important messages that we were able to send out—as a House, indeed—during the outbreak was that the countryside was open for business, unlike what had happened previously.
	Handling a disease outbreak is not easy, but the approach we have taken—which has been based on acting on a detailed contingency plan, using the best scientific advice and drawing upon the professionalism of the Animal Health agency—has been recognised to work. That is why  The Guardian was able to say in a leader:
	"Not only did DEFRA this year—in startling contrast to 2001—show signs of having a plan at the ready for dealing with foot and mouth; more importantly, it also showed that it understood how to implement it".
	Peter Kendall, president of the National Farmers Union, with whom we have worked so closely along with others in the industry to deal with the outbreak, said that
	"the industry has cause to be grateful to DEFRA's animal health officials who have striven to carry out the contingency plan operations to bring the recent outbreaks of FMD, then bluetongue disease and now Avian influenza under control."
	Let us contrast that with what the Opposition spokesman, hon. Member for East Surrey, wrote in  The Daily Telegraph in September about DEFRA and Animal Health staff. He is a decent man, but he accused them of the
	"ignorance of petty clipboard people, and of a disregard for the welfare of animals arising from either callousness or stupidity."
	I have met many of those people, and I think we should acknowledge that it has been their skill, their professionalism, their care and their commitment that was responsible for the praise they have received, and I hope the hon. Gentleman is now embarrassed by what he wrote.

Hilary Benn: Well, it is a bit late in the day for the hon. Gentleman now to say he was quoting somebody else, but he did not attribute it to somebody else and he must stand by those words. I genuinely regret that he passed on—if this is what he is now saying he did—a quote from a third party about staff. I have nothing but admiration for the colleagues—I call them colleagues—with whom I have worked, along with my fellow Ministers, in dealing with this outbreak. Even though the hon. Gentleman has his views about how the outbreak occurred, which we have debated at length, I do not think it is acceptable to attack the reputation of hard-working professional civil servants for the job that they have done.

Hilary Benn: I am well aware of that point, and let me explain what I have said to the industry. I think the whole House will recognise that we have worked closely with representatives of the industry in dealing with all three of the outbreaks, and at present there is a view in the group we have been talking to that we should keep the lines where they are. The winter is now almost upon us, and that will reduce the midge activity. We are all waiting for the vaccine to arrive, and if there comes a point in the new year where the balance of advantage might tip the other way, I will listen very carefully to the arguments put, because I accept the point the hon. Gentleman makes: it is a balance of argument. I must also say that my experience of dealing with these disease outbreaks reinforces in me the view that we should in future share the responsibility for taking those decisions much more closely with the farming community, and that includes sharing the costs—which is something that Iain Anderson recommended after the 2001 outbreak.

Tom Levitt: My right hon. Friend will have been as surprised as I was at the brevity of the Opposition opening speech, which contained no policy whatever—and as we are now hearing, it contained very little in the way of fact, even. At the last general election, the Opposition stood on a policy of cuts in public spending of between £20 billion and £30 billion. He has mentioned the RPA, but what effect would that policy have had on environmental spending?

Hilary Benn: On the first point, we have just heard two contributions that offer different view on which way the money is going. The fact is that there needs to be a system for prioritising flood defence investment. Rightly and properly we have given that responsibility to the Environment Agency. It has a system for scoring and assessing potential schemes. The best thing that we can do to assist it in that process is to ensure that it has more money to spend on flood defence, which is exactly what we have done over the past 10 years and what we will do over the next two years. Decisions about where the Environment Agency puts its head offices are a matter for the agency itself.

Hilary Benn: I shall reflect on the point that my hon. Friend has made.
	On DEFRA's budget and expenditure on what the hon. Member for East Surrey referred to as consultancy, may I, for the better information of the House, tell him a little about what the money is spent on? It is spent on buying services and employing outside experts, for example, the "Act on CO2" campaign—the hon. Gentleman may have seen the adverts— and the development of the carbon calculator, which has been used by 600,000 people. Those things are not quite what people would expect to be described by the word "consultancy".
	In this regard, I should also mention work on developing carbon markets and the EU emissions trading scheme; and research looking into the causes and consequences of climate change, including funding the world-renowned Hadley Centre—does he object to the funding of the Hadley Centre out of DEFRA's budget? The money is also spent on research into animal health, including work on bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth, bluetongue and avian flu. Does he object to the expenditure of money on such things. The money is also spent on the running of the Department's IT system, in partnership with IBM. Those are perfectly proper and legitimate expenditures of money to ensure that DEFRA is able to do its job. As the House will be aware, DEFRA's budget will rise from £3.5 billion to just under £4 billion by the end of the spending review period, and I shall say a little about how that will be spent.

Martin Horwood: Unlike the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), I do not live in a world of cartoon goodies and baddies. DEFRA's performance is good in parts, but it leaves much to be desired in others. DEFRA's response to the summer floods was a case in point.
	In Gloucestershire at least, emergency response systems worked well and Gold Command, under the direction of our chief constable, Tim Brain, proved an effective leadership team. I have to declare a personal interest as my wife, Dr. Shona Arora, was also a member of Gold Command. That meant that my contribution that week was often babysitting, and she felt that that accurately reflected the relative usefulness of doctors and politicians in a crisis.
	As many hon. Members have said many times, emergency services, local authorities, the NHS, charities, volunteers, local communities and friends and neighbours all responded brilliantly. Liaison with Ministers seemed to be good, and I appreciated the personal interest in the situation in my constituency taken by the Secretary of State. Significant extra funds were made available quickly through the flood recovery grant, although that highlighted the weakness of the existing Bellwin scheme, which clearly was not up to the job. It is to the credit of Ministers that they realised that quickly. I also note that support may be forthcoming from the much-maligned European Union. If moneys are made available from the European solidarity fund, I hope that all hon. Members will join me in welcoming that. Perhaps Ministers will update the House on the progress of that application.
	However, the bigger picture on flood defence still poses some very difficult questions. Many of my constituents, and many businesses in my constituency, are still counting the cost of the floods. I am worried that emergency response might be much more difficult, and people's tolerance much lower, if flooding hits again on cold, dark winter nights. Climate change makes that much more likely, and planning permissions are still outstanding for areas such as the open land at Leckhampton in my constituency, which flooded in July.
	The overall budget for flood defence is therefore critical, as it is what will prevent insurance premiums from spiralling and house prices from dropping. Indeed, it will prevent some new homes from being potentially uninsurable or even unsaleable. In Cheltenham, we already have a brand new flood defence scheme worth £23 million. June and July might have been much worse without it, but the Environment Agency staff who visited several sites in Cheltenham with me freely admit that more work needs to be done. What of the existing backlog of flood defence schemes? Will the Minister say how long it will take the Environment Agency to clear it, at the current rate of progress? The rumour is that it will take 10 years, which is a very worrying prospect. How many schemes have been put back by the Government's decision last year to cut flood defence spending by £14 million?

Martin Horwood: I believe that it would add insult to injury if all the money came from water bills, and I should be very concerned about that. I hope that the funds will come from the reprioritisation of broader Government spending. Perhaps we could save money in other sectors of government if we invaded fewer countries.
	The Association of British Insurers has been pretty clear about what needs to be done. As well as backing the Liberal Democrat policy that we should clear up the tangle of responsibilities surrounding flood prevention, it has backed our call to increase spending faster. In October, it said:
	"Government spending for the next three years is less than we were asking for even before the floods. It does not begin to address the major issues, including drainage, which were highlighted this summer. The Government will have to increase spending substantially, as needs are identified by the Pitt review team...the Government has completely failed to grasp the importance of improving Britain's flood defences in the wake of the devastating floods across the UK."
	Yet the Government are not really being so generous, even with their existing spending on floods. The overspend on flooding this year, along with unexpected spending on foot and mouth disease, bluetongue and avian flu, is going to mean budget cuts elsewhere in DEFRA. The Brown doctrine on departmental funds appears to be that a Department that gets hit by an unexpected overspend cannot expect money to be transferred from elsewhere in government.
	That is a more important point than one put forward by the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), who characterised the approach as one of pure financial mismanagement. The Prime Minister's callous approach brought the NHS into crisis last year, and now it seems to be DEFRA's turn. Estimates of the amount likely to be cut from other programmes range up to £300 million, as we have already heard. Will the Minister share with us where those cuts are likely to be made? Where is the support going to be cut for action on climate change, the protection of our natural environment, or support for our hard pressed farmers? Will Natural England's vital conservation work be reduced? It is already being asked by the Government to repay the £16 million spent on setting up the new agency structure, which was decided by the Government. Will the Minister at least confirm that the Environment Agency's £51 million budget for new conservation work will be protected, or will the axe fall on recycling and action against waste?
	I want to seize this opportunity to praise the Government's initiative on the business resource efficiency and waste—BREW—programme, and applaud the real practical action against climate change being taken by Envirowise, the waste resources action programme, the Carbon Trust and the lesser known but equally impressive national industrial symbiosis programme. That alone has eliminated 300,000 tonnes of hazardous waste, prevented the use of 5 million tonnes of virgin material and saved 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Perhaps the Minister will make it clear that their budgets are all safe.
	Is it even clear that the promised increases in flood defence spending will be protected? Or perhaps, and most astonishingly of all, is it animal disease control that will suffer? I find it quite breathtaking that DEFRA has requested local authorities to return funds for animal disease control—even in Surrey, where councils have been hit by both avian flu and bluetongue. I was surprised that the hon. Member for East Surrey did not find time to mention that. Devon county council has said that the cuts mean five of its eight posts may have to go as a result, and that
	"it will be catastrophic if an outbreak of disease happens."
	At a time when climate change is opening the door to new diseases like bluetongue, surely that is the last thing that we should be doing.
	The Secretary of State made the intriguing announcement on 19 November that he believes current arrangements to be unsustainable. Was that driven by strategic thinking, or by the short-term financial crisis in which DEFRA seems to have found itself? Surely our farming industry has suffered enough, not just from the disease outbreaks themselves but from DEFRA's performance in the regulation and monitoring of the Pirbright laboratory and, most of all, the fiasco of single farm payments. I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) that 25 per cent. of Welsh farmers still have not received their payments. I hope that the Minister will tell us the equivalent figure for England—although I fear that the figure will be much higher.
	I turn now to DEFRA's role as climate change champion for the whole Government. Again, some praise is due, and I am happy to associate myself with the Secretary of State's congratulation of the chief scientist on his participation in the intergovernmental panel on climate change and its receipt of the Nobel prize. After all, DEFRA is bringing forward the Climate Change Bill, which will put carbon emission reductions on the statute book, following the Stern report and Friends of the Earth's very effective "Big Ask" campaign. That is an important achievement, although Ministers know that we on the Liberal Democrat Benches think that the targets contained in the Bill are inadequate, and I have teased them about the amount of time that it has taken us to get to this point.
	The latest voices to be added to those calling for higher targets include last week's UN human development report, which called for cuts of at least 80 per cent. from the richer countries, and that of Sir Nicholas Stern himself. Speaking to the Royal Economic Society last Friday, Sir Nicholas said:
	"For a 50 per cent. reduction in global emissions by 2050, the world average per capita must drop from 7 tonnes to 2-3 tonnes. An 80 per cent. target for rich countries would bring equality of only the flow of emissions around the 2-3 tonnes per capita level. In fact, they will have consumed the big majority of the 'available space in the atmosphere'."
	In other words, if we are to achieve an equitable world agreement on carbon reductions, we have to commit to cuts of 80 per cent. or more, and that should be on the face of the Bill.

David Chaytor: If the hon. Gentleman wants his call for higher emission reductions to have credibility, why are Liberal Democrat councillors around the country campaigning against the very policies that would secure those reductions? Specifically, why are they in the forefront of campaigns against congestions charging in Greater Manchester, and why are they campaigning against wind farms on the edge of my constituency?

Martin Horwood: I am sorry, I shall not give way again. I do not know the circumstances in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but I am confident that Liberal Democrat campaigners in the area are doing the right thing.
	There is more evidence that the Government are parting company with even the contents of the Stern report. In the Environmental Audit Committee this morning, we heard from Friends of the Earth and WWF that the economic cost of carbon emissions—the future cost of climate change—being used by the Government is dramatically lower than Sir Nicholas Stern recommended. He cites a figure for the social cost of carbon in 2000 of $85 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. Using DEFRA's exchange rate, Friends of the Earth calculated that that equates to £53 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, but DEFRA has introduced a new concept—the shadow cost of carbon—and puts the 2000 value of that at only £19, which is nearly three times lower.
	What is the importance of that apparently technical detail? It affects all our lives—some more than others. It gives us a social cost of carbon emissions in the Heathrow consultation of just £4.8 billion. If DEFRA and the Department for Transport had stuck to Sir Nicholas Stern's figure, they would have put the cost at more than £13 billion. That would have stopped in its tracks the proposal for a third runway at Heathrow, but by miscalculating the future economic cost of climate change DEFRA has changed the outcome of the Heathrow runway consultation. Although carbon emissions are rising year on year—and have risen since the Government came to power—they have given the green light to one of the very projects that will stop them meeting their own targets. The cost to the environment and, as Sir Nicholas Stern pointed out, to the economy will be truly dreadful.
	There is more. DEFRA's influence on other parts of Government is clearly weak. Why else would the Chancellor, too, take a significant step away from Stern? Again I give due credit to Friends of the Earth's brilliant economist Simon Bullock for spotting that. The Chancellor's October document, entitled—without a hint of irony—"Implementing Stern" says that the basis of the carbon price is
	"to reflect the damage caused by emissions and to require Governments, businesses and individuals to meet the costs they impose on the environment".
	The Stern report actually argues rather differently—that it is not the price of carbon that determines the cap, but exactly the opposite: the cap should determine the price. Stern says:
	"A long-term stabilisation target should be used to establish a quantity ceiling to limit the total stock of carbon over time. Short-term policies (based on tax, trading or in some circumstances regulation) will then need to be consistent with this long-term stabilisation goal."
	This time, it is the Treasury that seems to be weakening the foundations of our attack on climate change.
	On 22 November, replying to me during a debate on climate change, the Minister for the Environment failed to say whether the British Government were taking active steps to persuade one of their friends not to veto a Bill that would put limits on the most significant carbon emissions of all—those of the United States of America. Will Ministers tell us whether DEFRA has asked the Foreign Office to ask George Bush not to veto the Lieberman-Warner Bill?
	DEFRA's performance has been good in parts. In its emergency response, in introducing the Climate Change Bill and in its responsibility for the BREW programme, the Department deserves credit; but by failing farmers, failing to plan for future flooding and above all by failing to spread the message on climate change across the whole Government, it has delivered a very poor performance indeed. If Members do not believe me, they should believe members of Green Alliance, who are so stingy with their accolades that they gave the Liberal Democrats only three green points in their assessment of a range of all our environmental policies—"The Green Standard Report". It gave the Government just one point. The best that can be said about that is that at least the Government did better than the Conservative party, which was given no points at all.

Elliot Morley: I was disappointed by the speech of the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth). It seemed rather a bogus attack on DEFRA. Of course, the Rural Payments Agency situation needs to be highlighted, although there are good reasons for it. The Select Committee report made a fair assessment of the background.
	I am one of the few Members to have served in both the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food and DEFRA—in fact, I may be the only one—so I can tell the hon. Gentleman that DEFRA is a huge improvement on the MAFF structure. MAFF was a 1960s Department; it suffered from low status and low morale, and made the most appalling mistakes, especially over Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) rightly said, had consequences for human lives, let alone the costs of the debacle. That situation arose partly because the then Conservative Government were far too dominated by producer interests rather than by the wider needs of society. They did not recognise that a balance was needed.
	The hon. Member for East Surrey criticised the handling of the 2001 outbreak, but I remember the Opposition congratulating the then Minister for Agriculture on his handling of the early stages of the outbreak. At that time nobody knew the scale of the outbreak; during the days before the disease was reported, it was being spread all over the country by the illegal and legal transport of animals. No country had ever found itself in that situation. The fact that that outbreak was contained and eradicated is a tremendous achievement for all concerned. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that, when playing political games, the hon. Gentleman should be careful not to trash the reputation of hard-working civil servants who showed the most incredible dedication when bringing that outbreak under control.
	I also echo what was said about the 2005 Conservative party manifesto. I remember debating the matter on platforms with Conservative and Liberal Democrat spokespeople. The 2005 manifesto commitments to cuts in public expenditure would have devastated the then English Nature budget.
	I was surprised by the hon. Gentleman's comments on waste. He seems to have forgotten that in 1997 the recycling rate was about 6 or 7 per cent. That has now risen to about 25 per cent. The amount of waste going to landfill has dropped, which is a considerable achievement compared with where we were 10 years ago. My local authority of North Lincolnshire has a recycling rate of 40 per cent. and is confident that it can hit rates of 50 per cent. It deserves a great many congratulations on what it has done. That has been brought about only because of support and grants from DEFRA, which is dedicated to reducing waste in this country. That is important.
	I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). I welcomed the Green Alliance report. Like most people, I think that there were one or two areas where the Green Alliance could have been a bit more generous, particularly in relation to the Government's record on biodiversity. Nevertheless, it was a fair assessment. The hon. Member for East Surrey should note that it gave the Government a great deal of praise for the international lead that they have given on climate change.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spelled out the areas in which this country has pioneered climate change policies. Not only that, but the expertise of DEFRA officials and scientists has been used in developing schemes all over the world and particularly in Europe. The software for the emissions trading registration scheme was developed in DEFRA and has been applied by, I think, the majority of European countries. I think DEFRA gets some income from that software development, and it deserves credit for that.
	Of course there are always areas that can be improved. However, I have experienced the limitations of MAFF, and seen how DEFRA has been given a much higher status and has attracted a wide range of new people, who have come to work there because they support the concept of DEFRA. Moving to a Department that has land use policy strategies for water, air and land was the right decision. If my memory is correct, at the time the Conservatives supported, rather than criticised, the approach of having a more powerful environment Ministry to deal with all the issues.
	I want to make five quick points to my right and hon. Friends on the Front Bench, for whom I have great deal of respect and who have done extremely well, particularly in handling the recent outbreaks. DEFRA has received a great deal of praise for the way in which it handled the bird flu and bluetongue outbreaks, and the recent foot and mouth outbreaks. It is using updated modern contingency plans. It faced a situation in which foot and mouth was not spread all over the country by a rogue farmer and the kind of movements that took place previously. The hon. Member for East Surrey should recognise that the situations are different.
	I said I would make five quick points. The first is EU funding. If we are to recognise that climate change is the biggest environmental threat that we face this century—perhaps the biggest threat that we have ever faced—there are important matters to consider. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been arguing for shifting agricultural spending towards the rural development regulation. That is the right thing to do, but we need to go further. We need to harness the EU to combat climate change. An awful lot of spending in the EU could be used much more productively. However, that is a matter for a wider debate; I just wanted to draw the point to my right hon. Friend's attention.
	Secondly, the Planning Bill will shortly go through Parliament. I know that my right hon. Friend does not have lead responsibility for the Bill, but streamlining planning is important. No one wants a better way of dealing with renewable energy and waste infrastructure more than I do, but there are issues to do with protecting biodiversity. It is important that biodiversity is not pushed to one side in the debate as a nuisance. My right hon. Friend's voice is important in that regard.
	Thirdly, on bovine tuberculosis, I ask my colleagues to please follow the science. We want decisions to be science-based. The arguments are incredibly complicated, and it is wrong for anybody to think that there are simple solutions to the problem. There has been a tendency to try to rubbish the Bourne report, which was carried out with great thoroughness. It is a very respectable scientific study. I ask Ministers please to make sure that we take a science-based approach, not one based on anecdotes.
	My fourth point, which has already been mentioned, concerns shared responsibility. It is hard to justify any industry that expects free insurance, paid for by the taxpayer. There has to be shared responsibility. Indeed, I would go further and say that it should be linked to biosecurity and how it is applied. For example, in the recent Bernard Matthews outbreak there were clear breaches of biosecurity. There is a strong suspicion that the outbreak was spread from operations in Hungary by movements within the factory. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money was paid in compensation. There has to be a better scheme.
	My last point is small but important. Through the Animal Welfare Bill, the Government made a huge contribution to improving conditions for animals. I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench are looking at the welfare codes at the moment; that is a real opportunity for giving clear guidance on improving the welfare of animals in our country. There are some difficult issues, such as that of performing animals in circuses, but I ask my colleagues not to go back on the assurances that former DEFRA Ministers gave the House; that is very important. I ask my colleagues to work closely with such groups as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which have been strong supporters of what the Government have done, and which want to work with them to make the codes effective.

Peter Atkinson: Indeed, longer than 10 years. Unfortunately, the chief scientific adviser supported a cull. A decision must now be taken. I appreciate that the decision is difficult, but it needs to be taken quite soon.
	Perhaps more controversially, a proper decision must be taken on genetically modified crops. Possibly alone on this side of the Chamber, I favour the planting of GM crops in this country, because I see them as an important new development in agriculture that will go a long way towards feeding people throughout the world with better and healthier food. We have to make that decision. The threat if we do not make that decision is that the livestock industry will gradually migrate abroad, because GM feed prices will be much lower than feed prices in the UK. That will pose a threat to the viability of our livestock industry. We will increasingly import meat more cheaply across the tariff boundaries from South America and countries in other areas.
	Those are the big issues that DEFRA needs to address. The British farming industry does not want a Ministry dogged with endless disasters, but a Ministry that can support farmers and stick up for them in an ever-changing world.

Eric Martlew: Indeed. On the right to roam, I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman use the word "socialist", which we do not hear often enough in the Chamber. In fact, many people roam through his constituency along Hadrian's wall, past my house, through the city and right on to Bowness. There is a value in people walking the countryside, and some of the rural pubs will be pleased with the Hadrian's wall path and the right to roam.
	I want to come on to what is basically a constituency speech. The motion and the amendment talk about foot and mouth disease, and in 2001 my constituency was the epicentre of the disease in the north of the country. I had the first Adjournment debate about foot and mouth disease in this Chamber when it did not seem to be a major problem. However, it turned out to become one; indeed, it was horrendous. When I found out that there had been another outbreak in the south of England, I felt so sorry for the individuals involved.
	However, it turned out that we had learned the lessons from 2001. The outbreak then was difficult, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) said. In 2001, we did not know that foot and mouth was around. The farmer concerned from Heddon-on-the-Wall had some terrible practices, but never reported the disease and in the end was prosecuted. That was the source of the outbreak in 2001. We argue about meat coming in from foreign countries, but if everybody had done what they should have done and if the biodiversity had been there, we would not have suffered the 2001 outbreak.

Eric Martlew: I do not know, but if that is the case, they should perhaps take the blame. The real answer, however, is that the pigswill should have been boiled, but that did not happen and that was the source, although we did not hear much criticism of the farming community or that individual from the Opposition then. However, we have learned the lessons of 2001. That is good and I am glad that the outbreak has been contained, because we do not want to go through that again. The big danger with foot and mouth is that in 10, 15 or 20 years' time when we have forgotten the lessons, it might happen again. I hope that at any such time we bring in vaccinations at a very early stage.
	Another issue is the Rural Payments Agency and the single farm payment. My constituents work in a very large RPA area office in the centre of Carlisle and when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary came up, he was candid in saying that things had gone wrong, but that there was no blame to be laid on the work force. I am sorry that the Opposition seem to be blaming DEFRA civil servants. In the Rural Payments Agency in my constituency, they work two or three shifts. These are civil servants on shift work—something that I never thought I would see. They work very hard and very conscientiously, doing their best in very difficult circumstances. I hope that the Opposition spokesman who replies will acknowledge that. If we are to blame civil servants, let us blame those up near the top rather than individuals further down.
	Flooding is another issue in our amendment. In 2005, my constituency suffered from the worst floods in an urban area of Britain for 50 years. It may have been worse since, but those were very serious floods. Unlike those we saw this year, they happened in the dead of winter in early January. We not only had floods; we had no electricity for many days. This was the first occasion for many years on which individuals drowned in floods in inland UK. Two old ladies drowned in their own homes in Warwick road in my constituency. It just so happens—it is a coincidence—that the Environment Agency announced today that the £12 million flood defences built in that area are now watertight. People living there will be able to sleep comfortably this winter. Unfortunately, in the part of the city where I live, the flood defences have not yet started, so I will not be able to sleep comfortably for another two years.
	I would like to pay tribute at this stage to my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe. That serious flooding happened on 5 January and my right hon. Friend arrived on the morning of 6 January, when it was still raining. He gave me a commitment on that occasion—in front of the cameras, which I felt was a rather brave thing to do—that money would be made available for flood defences in Carlisle. The £30-odd million that was needed for flood defences in the city has been made available. When they are completed, Carlisle will be the best defended city in England. I really want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for that.
	I would also like to pay a special tribute to the Environment Agency, which has done a magnificent job on the flood defences. I pay particular tribute to the lady who led the defences work—a lady called Kim Nicholson, who was there when the going was rough and made sure that the plans were delivered on time, but who tragically died this summer. It is the greatest tribute to her that her team has continued and that the flood defences are completed on budget and before time. That will be a fitting memorial for her.
	Let me return to the point I raised earlier with the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) about the funding of this country's flood defences. I appreciate that the Government have gone along with increases from £600 million to £650 million and then £800 million, but I can tell the Secretary of State that that will not be enough. If we reflect on what happened this summer, it is clear that we will not be able to raise enough money through general taxation to pay for all the flood defences that we will need in the future. I do not believe that it is possible. Those who live in a flood plain who pay high insurance premiums and do not sleep easy at night should perhaps be asked to pay an extra contribution in future. I am not sure what the best mechanism is for achieving that. It may be through insurance premiums, but I am sure that people would like to pay more towards flood defences and less to the insurance companies. I think it was the hon. Member for Cheltenham who spoke of the inability to obtain insurance at all for some properties, the reduction in value of properties on flood plains and sky-high premiums. I suspect that if we could provide flood defences for those communities, they would be prepared to make a small contribution. The Secretary of State should consider that point.
	Another aspect of floods is the aftermath. My right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, who has seen many more skips than I have, will know that once the floods have happened the skips arrive, and are themselves flooded with rubbish that goes to landfill. In Carlisle we probably contributed to eight years of landfill in a fortnight. Where was the recycling process? I can accept what happened in Carlisle because that was the first of a series of events, but I cannot accept as the years go by that all the goods that are taken out of houses and put in skips should go to landfill. It is partly to do with the way in which the insurance companies work: it is old for new. If you have an old suite, you put it in the skip. It was amazing to see how much more was recycled by those who were not insured than by those of us who were well insured.
	During the 2005 floods my car was flooded, but it was running. I ran it for a fortnight. Then the insurance people came along, and said that it was a write-off and would be crushed. My neighbour had a brand-new Porsche—

Hugo Swire: There are undoubtedly many challenges for DEFRA's animal health officials, who have been rightly praised today. They include the demand for successful contingency plans to bring the recent outbreaks of foot and mouth disease—once the virus had escaped from Pirbright—then bluetongue disease and now avian influenza under control. Those challenges, coupled with the increasing incidence of TB—about which we have also heard today—have stretched the successful work of DEFRA's animal health officials, so this would be a good time to ensure that they have all the resources that they require.
	In August, September and October, outbreaks of foot and mouth and bluetongue disease meant that the agreed local delivery plan for Devon had to be adjusted, and contingency plans were invoked. DEFRA indicated that it expected any additional costs incurred to be kept within the overall Devon framework budget. Then it admitted that it had not done its sums. The cost agreed by local authorities and the regional divisional veterinary managers for animal disease control work amounted to £9.7 million for 2007-08, but DEFRA had allocated £8.5 million, and is seeking to claw back £1.2 million in the current financial year.
	I was amazed to discover that Devon county council was notified of the situation, not by DEFRA but by the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services, on 17 September. It was not until 2 November than DEFRA formally instructed Devon to make cuts in this year's budget. Can the Secretary of State tell us why it took his Department so long to learn that it had oversubscribed its funds, and why it left it until so late to inform local authorities of the required cost savings? What discussions has he had on this, particularly in respect of the south-west, with his colleague, the Minister for the South West?
	Devon has now to make £68,000 of savings by March. That represents 12 per cent. of its framework budget, but because it has to make the savings in this financial year it actually means that there will be a 48 per cent. cut in animal disease-control work. As there is merely four months to find £68,000, the only option for Devon county council is to fire five out of eight animal health officials or to pay for them itself. Those officials are in the front line against infectious diseases. If they are fired, I am sure that the Secretary of State would agree that Devon will, in the words of a local official, have
	"very little to no preventative disease control"
	and, as that official continued,
	"Devon would be unable to maintain a presence at disease outbreak 'critical control points'".
	The 2006 agricultural and horticultural survey shows that Devon has more cattle than any other local authority in England, the second largest number of sheep and the fifth and sixth largest numbers of pigs and poultry respectively. Farms in Devon employ 23,000 people, which is more than any other local authority, and Devon covers the largest geographical area of any local authority—approximately 1.6 million acres. The Secretary of State has given commitments in respect of "rural-proofing" so that policies take account of rural circumstances and needs. Is he therefore satisfied with his cuts, which would lead to one official per 550,000 acres, one official per 190,000 cattle, one official per 490,000 sheep and one official per 1,700,000 chickens? I think I am right in saying that the south-west produces twice as much food as Scotland and three times as much as Wales—that is a staggering set of statistics, and it leads to staggering thoughts. Given the importance of agriculture in Devon, will he enter into discussions on its funding requirements as a matter of urgency? How can the Secretary of State satisfy himself that these cuts would not impinge upon future disease prevention, containment and control? The House will remember—we have heard from the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew)—the heart-breaking scenes, such as across my county of Devon, of the last outbreak of foot and mouth in 2001, and Members will be aware of the vital importance of managing future outbreaks effectively.
	By 2010, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs must achieve a
	"25 per cent. reduction in administrative burdens".
	We have seen what happens—such as in the top-down cuts on courier services in Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, which have had devastating consequences—and I urge the Secretary of State to speak to all local authorities to ensure they have the right number of animal health officials so that we can react quickly to any potential outbreak of foot and mouth, bluetongue, avian influenza or TB.
	I was concerned in reading the Secretary of State's speech at the Farming for the Future conference on 19 November that he said there should be a major shift of the cost and responsibility for animal health from Government to the industry, and he repeated that point this afternoon. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State or one of his Ministers would take this opportunity to enlighten us on the framework for
	"market-based ways of managing animal disease risks, including associated costs."
	I note the Government have received a submission from representatives of the UK livestock sector which urged them to
	"reconsider the proposed measures on cost sharing for animal diseases."
	That is not surprising given that foot and mouth in 2001 has been estimated to have cost the economy £5 billion. The irony seems to have been lost on the Secretary of State given that he believes that the
	"additional cost of disease outbreaks"
	is "unsustainable" yet the latest outbreak of foot and mouth was not caused by the industry but originated in a Government laboratory—which, I hope Ministers will agree, is unsustainable—and there was a second incident at Pirbright, which is shameful.
	I know the industry would be happy to become more involved in policy and operational decisions. However, such decisions must not be driven by any political desire to offload from DEFRA a basic responsibility of Government just because it is difficult to manage and because DEFRA is under budgetary pressure. Given that the beef, sheep and pig producers have been saddled with enormous additional costs—at least £100 million—as a result of the outbreak of foot and mouth this year, as well as steep increases in feed, energy and regulatory costs, does the Secretary of State agree that this is perhaps the worst time to increase further the burden on farmers? I am pleased that the Secretary of State will have time to consider those and other points when he goes to Bali with many of his officials shortly, but I hope that the officials he leaves behind will deal with an issue closer to home, and which relates closely to Devon: animal health and welfare.
	I want briefly to discuss poultry welfare and labelling, and the continuing failure of DEFRA and its officials to deal with those issues. Is the Secretary of State aware of growing consumer concern about broiler chicken welfare? The supermarkets' heavy discounting has squeezed farmers' margins to the point where they are unable to make welfare improvements. Sadly, it is increasingly common for some producers to rear flocks of 40,000 birds, each living in an area smaller than an A4 sheet of paper.
	Does the Secretary of State agree that consumer demand can stop that treatment, and that a requirement for improved labelling on poultry meat would enable consumers to make an informed choice about the chicken that they buy? If he does agree, or if he is tempted to do so, I hope that he will support the chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who has recently moved his River Cottage business into my constituency, and conducted his "Chicken Out!" campaign in Axminster. That campaign is trying to change consumer habits by informing consumers of animal welfare. I hope that the Ministers and DEFRA officials will study the findings of that project, which will potentially have a huge impact on producers and consumers alike.

Geoffrey Cox: I agree with that, but I shall not be distracted from my main point. There is a problem—the Secretary of State may say that it is a problem with perception—about how DEFRA is felt to act and operate in rural areas such as mine. I suspect that other hon. Members' constituents have told them of similar experiences. I have asked myself why that should be.
	The Secretary of State made a brave defence of those who work under him, and its warmth was a credit to him—one would have expected that. The fact remains that whether it is because of how DEFRA was conceived or because of some institutional failure of leadership, DEFRA is regarded as a standing joke in the communities that I represent—often the joke is a grim and sardonic one, but it is a joke none the less. There is a complete want of trust and a constant feeling that DEFRA is not standing by the side of those rural communities. They feel that it is standing on their shoulders and driving them down. I ask the Secretary of State to accept that it is not impossible to understand why that should be. Brave though his defence of his Department was, the fact is that it has made a pathetic litany of error and incompetence, almost since the moment that it was brought into being.
	The Secretary of State must recognise that it is unusual for a Select Committee in which his own side has a preponderance—I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) is not in his place—actually to call for the resignation of the then Secretary of State when dealing with a report. By then she had become Foreign Secretary, but that recommendation was not lightly made. It was made after careful and due deliberation. The Committee said—I hope that the Secretary of State has read the report—that there had been a clear failure of political leadership, not only in the initial decision to introduce a complex hybrid scheme, but in the subsequent follow-through. Indeed, the Minister of State said in evidence to the Committee that the Department did not follow it through. The decision was criticised on all sides as the wrong decision—it was not only the fault of the civil servants, and Ministers should not hide behind the human shield of civil servants who cannot answer for themselves—and it was a failure of political leadership. It was a criminal act of neglect. What should the people of the countryside think when they hear the Secretary of State say to the House today that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with his Department, even though the Select Committee—with a preponderance of Labour Members—told the then Secretary of State that she should consider her position and that there had been a failure of political leadership?
	Let us consider other decisions, such as the Department's decision on bovine tuberculosis. In 2005, the strategic review of bovine TB called for a partnership between the farming community and DEFRA and everybody welcomed that. In 2005, I was told in the House by one of the Secretary of State's predecessors that the time for a decision on bovine TB was very near, but nothing has been done. On 2006, the Minister of State told me that the time was nigh and that, after a three-month consultation, the decision would soon be taken. He said that it was necessary to see whether the statistics, which seemed to suggest a fall in numbers in 2006, were borne out. Since 2006-07, of course, the incidence of bovine TB has risen by 22 per cent. There have been some 2,617 herd incidents. Nothing has been done.
	It is not right or credible to say to the farming community that the Government want a partnership with it while they continue to load the cost of the disease through the introduction of tabular valuations, and fail to take the brave decision that is plainly needed to use culling as an instrument of policy. It should not be the sole instrument of policy, or even the main instrument of policy, but it must be an instrument available in the hotspot areas of dense infection, where the balance of risk favours it. But no decision has been taken.
	The Secretary of State asks for time. He said as much to the Committee recently. But every Secretary of State before him has asked for the same thing. They have all said that the time for a decision was near, come to the very brink of that decision, and then pulled back. How can the country people whom I represent have confidence that this Secretary of State will listen and take a decision when the two previous Secretaries of State have failed to take that decision although they, too, said that the time was nigh?
	I shall give an example. Mr. David Grigg in my constituency has a pedigree herd of the most beautiful and valuable Holstein cows. It has recently been placed under bovine TB restrictions and several of his prize breeding animals have been condemned. They have already been slaughtered.
	I ask the Secretary of State to look into this case. One animal, a prize-winning cow worth £20,000, is still alive. Her half sister sold for 16,000 guineas just the other day, and she is a most superb example of this country's breeding stock. If DEFRA slaughters that animal, even though she is not even a conclusive reactor, Mr. Grigg will receive just £1,400 in compensation. Farmers have been told that they must be in partnership with the Government, but how would the Secretary of State feel if he owned an animal like that and then discovered that she was to be taken from him and slaughtered? That is neither fair nor equitable, and it is no wonder that people in the countryside consider DEFRA to be a sardonic joke.
	The Pirbright saga is another example, and the Secretary of State and I have already had an exchange about it. To do him credit, he did not seriously deny that it was a clear failure in the system, although I believe that it was, in part at least, a failure of his Department. The drains at the Pirbright facility were known to be dilapidated and due for replacement, but even so the foot and mouth virus escaped. No one inquired as to whether the drains were able to cope with having live virus flushed down them, or whether the virus would leech into the outside environment.
	That was an act of negligence, but the Secretary of State has come to the Dispatch Box to tell the country, and country people, that DEFRA has been acting well, even though at least part of the cost, stress and distress of the latest foot and mouth outbreak can be traced unerringly back to it. He should not feel surprised, therefore, by the suggestion by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) that farmers have a grim and sardonic view of the Department.
	However, what happened was not a failure by civil servants, for whom he so warmly and creditably stood up. The failure was caused by the political leadership of two successive Secretaries of State and, unless the right hon. Gentleman listens to what is being said in this debate, there is a danger that he will be the third one to be held responsible. The financial management of the Department has led to £50 million already being overdue—

Richard Benyon: I feel entirely anticlimactic, Mr. Deputy Speaker, after the fantastic oratory of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox). However, before I say any more, I must refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
	The Secretary of State recently wrote to every farmer in the country. I was very grateful to receive that letter and to hear of his commitment to British farming, but he will understand from what has been said in the debate by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon, and by my hon. Friends the Members for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) and for East Devon (Mr. Swire), that many farmers will be looking to him for action rather than warm words.
	The reality of British agriculture is represented not by barley barons driving Range Rovers, but by the ashen-faced people we saw every night on our televisions during the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak. They work an 80-hour week and take home less than the minimum wage, but at the time they were watching their life's work go up in flames. They have been beaten down by those who should have been helping them but who have too often placed the hand of regulation on their shoulders. That regulatory imposition has been backed up by incompetence and a lack of understanding.
	During the latest outbreak, one of my constituents telephoned the DEFRA office to ask what he should do with the 1,400 lambs that he had to move that week. He was asked, "Well, haven't you got any hay for them?" That shows how little understanding there is in the Department of the dynamics of stock farming. If I have time, I shall return to that later in my contribution.
	I want to move the debate slightly away from farming and talk about another of DEFRA's responsibilities—rural communities—to show the impact on them of the shambles in the Department's finances. I draw the attention of the Secretary of State to the work of rural community councils, which are organised by counties and funded in part by DEFRA. They lobby local authorities on behalf of rural communities and support community organisations in rural areas. In my area, for example, RCCs assist with parish planning—a wonderful concept that has done much for local governance and widening its base.
	The councils target help for disadvantaged people in rural areas. They support and promote social enterprises. In a small way, they help village halls become sustainable organisations by encouraging more involvement from local people. They ensure that there is sensible working between Government agencies, primary care trusts, fire authorities and other bodies; they act as the rural conscience of those organisations and make them work for rural as well as urban people. RCCs help with education, learning and skills training for people in rural areas. They run projects for disaffected young people, and assist in drug prevention schemes and other worthy initiatives.
	DEFRA's funding for those organisations is being cut and, in many cases, axed. Today, I heard that a number of RCCs will not be able to continue in their entirety— [ Interruption. ] I shall be interested to hear what the Minister for the Environment says in the wind-ups. In Berkshire, the comparatively paltry sum of £117,000 will be axed next year. That money levers nearly £1 million into rural communities in constituencies such as mine.
	Tomorrow, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), will attend a 21st century village conference in Westminster. He will have to tell the RCCs that will be represented there why DEFRA is cutting funding for rural communities when they desperately need the help that I have just described. It is yet another example of how the problems of DEFRA's current financial status affect people in real life.
	The Institute for Animal Health—the sister organisation to Pirbright—is in Compton in my constituency. We live in a world where we face avian influenza and foot and mouth disease. Bovine tuberculosis is a constant blight on the rural farming community and now we face the bluetongue virus. Those institutes are in the front line in the battle against those organisms.
	I have talked to past and present scientists at Compton, and they express real anger because in some circles they are held up as the whipping boys for some of the problems—possibly the big problem—at Pirbright. For a long time, they have been telling the Government that their methodology for attacking those diseases is world renowned, yet the Government will not let them operate that methodology, which is to examine the entire biology of the pathogens. It is a complicated, expensive and lengthy process and too often the Government ask the scientists to narrow their field of investigation and look only at particular elements. The scientists say that the Government are asking them for a quick-fix solution, which it is impossible for them to provide.
	At a time when diseases are affecting rural communities as never before, funding for those crucial organisations has been reduced from £7.5 million in 2001 to £3.9 million—by more than half in real terms. I hope that the Secretary of State can understand the real anger of some scientists.
	I conclude by making an impassioned plea. I cannot speak with the vigour and eloquence of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon, but I shall speak up to the best of my ability for mixed farming and stock farming in Britain. I have the honour and privilege to represent one of the most beautiful parts of the south of England: the Berkshire downs. I have known the Berkshire downs for all of my 47 years and I still find it hauntingly beautiful.
	We have heard excellent contributions from Members talking about biodiversity. My worry is that, although the Berkshire downs may still be beautiful, they are no longer a centre of mixed farming, as they were just a few years ago. I can count the number of pig farmers in the Berkshire downs on the fingers of one hand. When it comes to the number of stock and dairy farmers, I am one of the few that remain in that part of Berkshire. The effect of that is being felt when it comes to biodiversity and the whole rural community. That is not something that can be reversed. In the central south of England, and many other parts of the country, we are losing the infrastructure that supports stock farming. We are losing marts. I am running out of time, but I hope that the Minister will address those points when he winds up.